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DANIEL STRANGE
PIONEER HISTORY
OF
EATON COUNTY
MICHIGAN
1833 — 1866
OE THE STOEY OF
The last to live the simple life, toiling, spinning, weaving,
Cooking 'round the open fire; with axe and gun retrieving
Nature's products from the soil, the wild-wood half concealing;
Swinging cradles night and day, such human love revealing;
Those "early leaders opening up the way" for coming neighbors,
Who gave for us, their coming sons, their lives, their loves,
their labors.
COMPILED BY
DANIEL STRANGE, M. Sc.
published undee the auspices of the
Eaton County Pioneee and Histoeical Society
1923
Frank N. Green, Cynthia A. Green, J. Sumner Hamlin, Frank A. Ells
Publishing Committee.
COPYKIGHT, 1923, BY DANIEL STRANGE.
The Charlotte Republican Print.
H. T. McGrath and M. H. DeFoe.
INTRODUCTION
This book lias been published for the benefit of
the people of Eaton County, who through life's an-
cestral chain are lovingly linked to the past. Its
pages cover portions of the history of the county in-
cluding a third of a century, but they make no
claim of entire completeness. If power were given
the narrator a complete detailed history would
resurrect and reveal all of the myriad of hardships,
privations, afflictions, reverses and solemn visita-
tions as endured by the pioneers, who leaving al-
ready settled communities, wended their way into
the primeval Michigan forests to carve out homes
and enlarge the borders of civilization.
Such a reflection of a past generation cannot be
reproduced in completeness. The impotence of mere
words render its impossible.
But these pages as compiled and written cover-
ing the early history of Eaton County by Hon.
Daniel Strange of Oneida, a life-long resident and
pioneer, supply a fund of interesting historical mat-
ter and information that will grow in value with
the years, and be treasured more and more as gen-
eration follows generation through the years that
are certain to follow.
All of these first settlers have passed on before.
Nearly all of them — as we usually interpret life —
vii
viii INTRODUCTION.
are now sleeping beneath the sod which through
their efforts and sacrifices was tilled and prepared.
Every cemetery in the county bears within its bosom
those who fought the heroic fight of dominion, pass-
ing the fruits of their anxieties and toil to those of
us who follow them. Surrounded and impressed by
these sacred memories this rehearsal of events cov-
ering a generation should be of great value, and to
Mr. Strange, now advanced in years, a product of
Eaton County and a nobleman by nature, who has
gladly given of his time and strength in the compil-
ing of this book should the people feel profoundly
grateful.
To the readers of this book the suggestion is
ventured that life is one continuous whole, in reality
not broken by periods or generations, but past,
present and future actually linked indissolubly to-
gether as the moving picture may be viewed upon
the screen. Thus families of the past and present
are only seemingly broken, and we now in action, or
possibly on the threshold of the future, are also
pioneers working out the plan of a still more glor-
ious destiny.
Frank A. Ells.
Charlotte, Mich., August 28, 1923.
PREFACE
"I hear the tread of Pioneers of nations yet to be,
The first low wash of waves where shall roll a human sea."
So spake in wise prophetic words the poet of the free.
While standing lone mid forests vast on Lake Superior's shore
This music broke upon his soul above the water's roar.
He listened then for coming men; let us con their mission o'er.
The coming men must clear the Vv'oods and conquer foes and
fears ;
Their wives must share their toil and care and, smothering
many tears,
Must children rear mid want and fear, while hope filled up the
years.
A noble race of stalwart men! their hearts must know no fear;
With courage strong, eschewing wrong, they left all kindred dear
And, last words spoke, with hearts of oak they came to conquer
here.
Savage was Nature's gentlest mood, savage the beasts, they tell;
Savage the blast of winter's gale, savage the trees that fell;
Savage the blows of these savage foes, savage the men as well.
These were the foes that hedged them round, these were the
foes o'ercome;
But their weapons were mainly those of peace, and they con-
quered, one by one,
The pathless wood and the fordless flood and here they built
their home.
Home, home, 'twas a humble home, but the love that there was
known
Was the mother love and the father love and the love of their
children own;
A love that grew dear because of the fear of the dangers they
shared alone.
Then neighbors came and strangers came and they welcomed
one and all;
ix
X PREFACE.
And their hearts grew warm. No social storm and seldom a
a petty brawl
Was permitted to break nor aught to take from the love they
bore for all.
So with sympathy vast they came at last to claim as brethren all
The men who land from a foreign strand and settle within the
wall
Of our oceans vast. So we came at last to form a Nation, small.
But soon to expand and cover the land and extend from sea to
sea,
From perpetual snow to the gulf below and to islands in the sea.
Our soldier bands in foreign lands fight old world tyranny.
But evils here we now must fear and fight with might and main
All sinful lust and lust of pride and lust of sordid gain.
The liquor curse and evils worse have bound us with a chain.
These are the foes that now disclose and all advance assail.
The pioneers put by all fears; to conquer ne'er did fail.
Shall we, their sons, prove recreant ones and let our foes prevail?
Let's emulate the pace they set and every wrong assail,
And greeting give to all who live wherever they may dwell;
Our brethren all both great and small to own them we do well.
In brotherhood to all mankind our love should none forsake.
Accept the task, if islands ask our freedom to partake;
Let's share this boon with them right soon, their energies awake!
Shout LIBERTY to all the world till heaven's vault is riven!
And as we pray from day to day let charity be given.
"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as 'tis in
Heaven."
So shall our land become more grand — home of the noble, free.
I hear the tread of Pioneers' sons echoing from sea to sea.
And I hear the shout their songs ring out, "LOVE, TRUTH and
LIBERTY."
CONTENTS.
Foreword 1
Charlotte 7
Bellevue 15
Eaton 27
Hamlin 37
Vermontville 46
Sunfield 57
Trying Trails 62
Delta 70
Eaton Rapids 81
Eaton Rapids City 89
Chester 93
Pioneer's Golden Wedding 97
Kalamo 101
Walton 107
Olivet 109
Oneida 116
Grand Ledge 123
Roxand 127
M. A. C. Semi-Centennial 134
Benton 138
Brookfield 149
Windsor 156
Carman Golden Wedding 164
Carmel 165
Address to Pioneers 173
Pioneer Society 190
XI
PIONEER HISTORY OF
EATON COUNTY
Inteoductoey Chaptee
Washington Irving, writing an humorous history
of New York, thought it necessary to begin with
the creation of the universe. It is not necessary, in
writing of the Pioneers of Eaton County, to relate
the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, or
even allude to its possible discovery by Lief Erricson
some five hundred years earlier, but it is proper to
note that among the early explorers the Spaniards
over-ran Peru, Central America and Mexico in quest
of gold and the region of the lower Mississippi in
search for the fountain of eternal youth.
The Dutch explored the Hudson Eiver thinking to
find it a channel across the continent. It is strange
that these early navigators should have thought it
possible that a rapidly flowing current of fresh
water from the hillsides might prove a channel level
with a distant ocean. The French, too, explored the
St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes to all their bound-
aries thinking to find thence a passage to the Indies.
In fact LaSalle did find the portage across to the
Illinois River down which he floated to the Miss-
1
I PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
issippi and the Gulf and was surprised to find him-
self still on the eastern side of the continent.
These were not home-seekers. The French inter-
married with the Indians and continued for many
years as explorers and left a race of half-breeds be-
hind them. They established a mission at Sault Ste.
Marie in 1641 and a more permanent settlement
there in 1668. They founded a mission at St. Ignace
in 1671 and a fort at Detroit in 1701, but made little
progress toward permanent settlements. It re-
mained to the English to colonize America.
Michigan was part of the Northwest Territory
until 1800, when it became part of Indiana Terri-
tory and in January, 1805, it was organized as Mich-
igan Territory. It remained a desert wilderness
until 1823, when it was given representative govern-
ment. The southern portion, about fifty miles in
width including Eaton County, was surveyed into
townships, each six miles square and numbered from
the base line and principal meridian, in 1825. These
in turn were surveyed into sections one mile square
in 1826 and 1827, or about ten years before settlers
arrived. These government surveyors in 1825 met
many bewildering hardships and became disgusted.
They reported that the country was but a series of
interminable swamps and sand barrens ''with not
more than one acre in a hundred, and probably not
more than one acre in a thousand, fit for cultiva-
tion. ' '
General Cass, who was Governor from 1813 to
FOEEWOKD. 6
1831, knew better. He had helped to cut the army
path through the wilderness from Urbana, Ohio, to
Detroit in 1812. He had gone over the trail from
Detroit to Saginaw, and he was the first white man
who ever rode over the trail that led from Detroit
to Fort Dearborn, the present site of the city of
Chicago. With a view to counteracting the effect
of these reports, and opening up the country, he
secured government appropriations, one for the
inauguration of a system of roads connecting De-
troit with various distant points. At the terminus
of one of these roads has since grown up the city of
Port Huron ; of another, Saginaw^ ; of a third, Grand
Eapids, and a fourth terminal is what is now the
city of Toledo. By far the most important road was
that stretching westward to Lake Michigan and
ultimately to Fort Dearborn. Doubtless the settle-
ment of Michigan was much delayed by the fact that
the low lying lands about Detroit, and for thirty
miles inland, were under water much of the year,
thus presenting an almost impassable barrier to
pioneer settlement. About 1830, pioneers began to
occupy the higher and drier lands of Oakland and
"Washtenaw counties. The government roads
above named became available for pioneering fur-
ther inland. No road led direct to Eaton County
but many followed the "Grand River Road," after-
w^ards the ''Plank Road," from Detroit through
where now are Howell and North Lansing and
thence a trail toward Grand Rapids. On this trail.
4 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
in Clinton County, at Eagle, a professional land-
looker named Groger aided many in fording Grand
River and locating lands in tlie north part of Eaton
County but very many more took the "Territorial
Road" toward Chicago. They followed this as far
as Jackson or even Battle Creek whence they
turned north and so entered Eaton County.
Eaton County was called into being by act of the
Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Michigan
on the 29th of October, 1829, when there was not a
white inhabitant Avithin its bounds. Andrew Jack-
son that year became President and the new county
was named Eaton for his Secretary of War. On the
4th of November of that year the Council enacted
that the County of Eaton shall be attached to, and
become part of St. Joseph County. On the follow-
ing day it was enacted that the Counties of Branch,
Calhoun and Eaton should be set off into a town-
ship by the name of Green. By act of July 30, 1830,
Eaton County was attached to Kalamazoo for
judicial purposes — and all of this before there was
an inhabitant within the bounds of the county.
On March 18, 1835, the Territorial Council enacted
that the County of Eaton shall be a township by the
name of Belleville and the first township meeting
shall be held in such place as the sheriff of Calhoun
County shall appoint and said county shall be at-
tached to Calhoun County for judicial purposes.
In 1835, the Territorial Council adopted a State
form of government and applied for admission to
FOREWORD. 0
the Union. In 1836, this was granted with the pro-
viso that Michigan accept a southern boundary as
claimed by Ohio. Michigan accepted this and cast
her electoral vote in 1836, w^hich was accepted and
counted but the ''wireless" was slow in those days
and it was not until January, 1837, that Congress
proclaimed Michigan a State. Hence, outside of
Michigan, that is called the date of her admission
but inhabitants of the State claim an earlier date,
and prove it.
On December 29, 1837, the State Legislature en-
acted that ''the County of Eaton be and the same is
hereby organized and the circuit court of the said
County of Eaton shall be held at such place as the
county commissioners shall provide." The com-
missioners fixed upon Bellevue "until suitable
rooms could be erected at the county seat." This
had been legally fixed upon the Charlotte prairie
before there was house or habitation there. G. W.
Barns of Gull Prairie had purchased from the gov-
ernment in 1832, a part of this prairie. He offered
special inducements to the Territorial Commission-
ers to locate the county seat here and he entered a
bond of $1,000. The claim that Bellevue was once
the county seat has shadow of truth. Courts and
records were held there for a time.
The first purchases of land in the county were
mainly by speculators and not by settlers. The first
entry was in 1829, a part of section 30, in Vermont-
ville, by T. Sumner. The second entry was in Oneida
6 PIONEEE HISTORY OP EATON COUNTY.
Townsliip, section 2, by H. Mason in 1831. This
section includes the north part of the present city
of Grand Ledge, includes the islands and the ledges,
but it did Mason but little good. It was sold four
years later for taxes.
In 1832, the Government Tract Book shows three
entries only in the county, two by G. W. Barns, parts
of section 18 in Eaton Township, and of section 13
in Carmel, both of these now in Charlotte.
The first settlement in the county was in Bellevue
and will be described at length under that title, and
the second was in 1835 in Eaton at the edge of Char-
lotte prairie and will be fully described under Eaton.
Eight townships were first settled in 1836 and
five in 1837, and last, but not least, Carmel in 1838.
A chapter will be given to each in order of settle-
ment as nearly as possible but for the present we
look to the history of our proud county seat,
Charlotte.
Its location was upon a most beautiful flowering
prairie. The legend that this was first discovered
by a Mr. Torrey in 1833, is not consistent with the
fact that the village was platted upon the two one-
eighth sections (one upon each side of the section
line), which were bought from the government in
1832 by G. W. Barns. He secured the location of
the county seat here and later sold his holdings to
E. B. Bostwick.
The following statement was written and read
by E. A. Foote, Esq., in 1877. It differs somewhat
CHAELOTTE. /
from otlier published statements but lie was pains-
taking and thorough and had facilities not now
available and he vouched for its accuracy :
"Jonathan and Samuel Searls found their way
through from Bellevue in October, 1835, They
worked five days cutting their track and then hired
a team to bring Mrs. Searls and their household
goods through. This track followed the Indian trail
from Bellevue to the Indian village in Walton and
then followed the ridge along the south side of Battle
Creek until it reached the township line running
through Charlotte. This was for a long time the
only passable route to Bellevue.
' ' Jonathan and Samuel had no team to work with
for one year after they came. By their own unaided
strength they had to cut and move to the spot the
logs for Samuel Searls' house, and then raise the
logs to their place in the building. There was not
another house or family within eight miles of them.
These two men worked alone bare handed, laying
the foundation of a city, until the first of February,
1837, when Japhet Fisher joined them as hired man
and went to chopping for them. (He afterwards be-
came, by accident, the first settler in Benton where
fuller mention will be given). Stephen Kinne and
his wife and brother, Amos, came through on the
first of January, 1837, following the track cut in
1835, and built their house two miles south of Char-
lotte. The nearest house then was Mr. Shumway's
in Walton, two miles southwest of where Olivet is
8 PIONEEB HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
now located. In 1837, the Searls brothers built a
honse for Uncle Jonathan further west on Searls
street. It was this log house of Uncle Jonathan's
that became, for a time, the headquarters for the
county. They held caucuses, conventions and county
canvasses there. 'They most always stayed over
night,' Aunt Sally said. She had them all to wait
upon. She did the 'county cooking' for years. 'We
had a great deal of men's company in those days,'
she said, 'but we seldom saw a woman.'
"In 1837 or '38, a log house was built on the south
side of Lawrence Avenue east of the site of the
Methodist church, where Charles Piper once resided.
This was the first building erected properly on the
prairie; the house of Jonathan Searls was in the
edge of the timber at the southeast corner of the
prairie.
"Allen Searls, a half brother of Jonathan, Ste-
phen and Samuel, moved with his wife in September,
1838, coming with a horse team via Jackson and
Eaton Rapids. A road was cut out from the Rajoids
to a point in Eaton Township and was passable for
teams. From Charlotte a path was cut out as far
east as the Holcomb place. When Allen Searls ar-
rived he contracted with E. I. Lawrence to finish a
tavern or 'court house' as it was called. Mr. Searls
was unable to finish the building in time for the
spring court in 1839, and the first court was not held
here until the following year. ' '
The above v/as written by E. A. Foote, Esq., and read by him
at the Pioneer meeting, 1S77.
CHAELOTTE. 9
Edward A. Foote settled in Micliigan in 1840. He
entered tlie University of Micliigan in 1840 and on
the 15tli of August, 1848, located in Eaton County
of which he was elected clerk in 1856. In January,
1855, he established the Eaton Republican (after-
wards the Charlotte Republican) and became its
first editor. He was prominent in organizing the
Republican party in the county and in the State.
Harvey Williams, who owned the first frame
house, as successor to Simeon Harding, established
the first store in the place. A block building, which
stood on the lot between the hotel and the Metho-
dist church, was built by Mr. Bostwick and occu-
pied by a young lawyer. La Conte.
Dr. A. B. Sampson came to Charlotte in 1848, and
won his place as one of its most enterprising citi-
zens. The "Sampson Hall" in which the courts
were for some time held, was built by him in 1856
and '57, and was the second or third brick building
in the place.
Hiram Shepherd first came to Michigan in 1837,
and purchased a tract of land about two miles
southeast of Charlotte, then w^ent east for his fam-
ily, returning with them in 1840. "Charlotte then
contained but two or three buildings and neighbors
were scarce." After moving two or three times
he finally settled at what became known as ' ' Shep-
herd's Corners" where his remaining years were
spent.
Alonzo L. Baker settled in Eaton County in 1842,
10 PIONEEE HISTOKY OF EATON COUNTY.
and in Charlotte in 1848, which was his home until
his death in 1880.
Henry Robinson settled in Vermontville in 184-1,
and removed to Charlotte in 1852.
Hannibal G. Rice was a well known character and
amassed considerable wealth.
Ellzey Hayden settled in Charlotte in 1844, and
engaged in business with his brother John. He
was a prominent citizen and held county office for
many years.
James Johnson settled here in 1851, F. H. Kil-
bourn in '57 and T. D. Green in '46.
Rev. Luman Foote, father of E. A. Foote, was an
Episcopal clergyman and graduate of the University
of Vermont ; he practiced law in the supreme court
of Vermont in 1822, founded and edited the Burling-
ton Free Press from which he retired in 1833. He
preached in Kalamazoo from 1840, and came to
Charlotte in 1846.
D. F. Webber came to Charlotte in 1857, and the
following winter taught the village school, then
took a census of the village and found less than seven
hundred inhabitants. He taught in a brick build-
ing on West Lovett street. The building afterwards
became a wagon shop.
Mr. Johnston established the Eaton Bugle in
March, 1845. The first number had advertisements
of S. E. Millett & Co., ''All kinds of goods (for
ready pay only) ; also, wanted 100,000 bushels of
ashes delivered at our ashery in exchange for
CHAELOTTE, 11
goods." Joseph Hall, M. D. and M. S. Wilkinson,
attorneys, had cards in this issue. J. & E. Hayden
advertised tin, etc., for sale, ''Terms — ready pay.
All kinds of produce taken in exchange." The
editor was evidently an humorist. From his long
editorial I clip but a fragment: "Where is the heart
that hath ever imagined the inward pang that a half
cracked swain endures when gazing where two of
these flowers — the most lovely that ever grew —
bringing their lips together with a sound not unlike
that which a cider barrel makes when the bung
flies out." The sixth issue of the Bugle announced,
"Since our last paper there have thirteen settlers
arrived in our prairie city. We are happy to an-
nounce the prospects of our city were never better."
E. B. Bostwick of New York City had purchased
of Geo. W. Barns the entire tract upon which the
early village was located. H. I. Lawrence of Char-
lotte was his agent. Bostwick wrote Lawrence from
New York, December 29, 1838, a letter from which I
extract the following : " I am much pleased with your
purchase of the balance of the Eaton County-seat
property and I will soon write you a long letter sub-
mitting a plan for the to^\Ti. You speak of calling
the place after me but I have just become a married
man and I would prefer calling it Charlotte after
my wife."
A petition from the citizens was handed to the
board of supervisors at their session in 1863, and
the order was issued on the twelfth of that month
12 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
incorporating tlie village of Charlotte. The first
election was held on the first of March, 1864, when
the following officers were chosen: President, A. D.
Shaw; Trustees, W. L. Granger, Joseph Mnsgrave,
Calvin Clark, Sylvester Collins, S. P. Webber, and
T. L. Curtiss; Marshal, Henry Baughman; Treas-
urer, E. T. Church; Clerk, E. A. Foote; Assessor,
S. P. Jones.
By act of Michigan Legislature, March 29, 1871,
the City of Charlotte was incorporated, but this is
more recent than the pioneer period.
The first postmaster here was Jonathan Searls,
appointed in 1838, and a mail bag, sometimes empty,
came once a week from Marshall.
Musgrave & Haslett became dry goods mer-
chants here in 1854. F. W. & P. M. Higby entered
the same business in 1858.
Elisha Shepherd, in company with his father-in-
law, L. H, Ion, began business here in 1852. They
were proprietors of the old Eagle Hotel and oper-
ated a line of stages to neighboring towns. About
1856, the firm of E. & J. Shepherd was established.
Elisha Shepherd became very prominent and for
many years was the president of the Eaton County
Pioneer Society.
E. T. Church established a grocery here in 1856,
and continued it until he was the oldest established
merchant in the city.
Dr. Henry M. Munson came to Charlotte from
New York in the fall of 1847, his family joining him
in the following spring. The old Munson home.
CHAELOTTE. 13
near tlie Federal building, is still in possession of
the family, tlie owner being a grandson, Carl Mun-
son Green, the well known Chicago-Detroit adver-
tising man. Dr. Munson was the county's first
Probate Judge which office gave him the unique
distinction of serving the people of the community
at both ends of their earthly career — in the begin-
ning as the family doctor, making his calls on horse-
back and carrying his medicine in saddle bags, and
at the close of the pilgrimage, as the county judge,
disbursing their earthly possessions according to the
meager laws of the time.
A. H. Munson and Theodore J. Thomas estab-
lished a hardware store here in 1861.
Musgrave & Lacey established a banking busi-
ness here in January, 1862. (These dates are copied
as I find them in print. My personal recollection
would question some of them.)
Hon. D. Darwin Hughes taught the school here in
1841-42.
N. A. Johnson, a manufacturer, came here in 1842,
when there were but five completed houses in the
city.
Charlotte may well be proud of her beautiful
prairie but, financially considered, it is but a poor
offset for the stream, water-power and sawmill
possessed by other infant villages of the period.
The Searls brothers were experts with the broadaxe
and hewed boards (leaving no score marks) for
many houses. The first load of lumber in Charlotte
was drawn from Spicerville in 1838. It was used in
14 PIONEEK HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
flooring the hotel in 1840, and in May, 1840, the
first term of court was held in its upper room. The
^first permanent settlement in the county was in July,
1833. Allowing a full generation for pioneering the
county, the county was well opened up in 1866.
There were as many miles of road opened up in the
county then as today (not so good, however). As
many bridges, as many schools, churches, (not
edifices), mills, etc. Pioneers no longer cut roads
to their homes through trackless forests nor
pounded corn upon stumps for their meal. The
open fireplace had given place to the stove for cook-
ing and carpets appeared upon their floors. About
this time home-spun suits for grown daughters
gave place to calico and young men began to buy
some of their clothes "ready made."
The soldiers returned from the Civil War with
some money and much enterprise in 1865. An era of
rapid development then set in and the county has
since multiplied its wealth many fold but not by
pioneering methods. Perhaps as many acres have
been cleared since that date as before but by quite
different process. The grub hoe has given place to
dynamite, the scythe to the mower, the sickle to
the reaper, the ox to the horse and he to the motor.
We talk with friends a thousand miles away and
transport ourselves through the air and our
thoughts by wireless to the ends of the earth.
The pioneers' proper work ended in 1866, and we
may well end our history there and now bid a grate-
ful farewell to the pioneers for a season.
BELLEVUE TOWNSHIP
The early prospectors and pioneers of Eaton
County exhibited much esthetic taste. As we have
seen the site of Charlotte was selected because of
its beautiful flowering prairie; so too at Bellevue,
the site merited its name when but an Indian vil-
lage and long before white men beheld it. J. T.
Hayt, the first postmaster there, thus described it :
"The burr-oak plain where the village of Bellevue
is now situated, contained about a half section of
land and, in its original state, it was to me the most
beautiful spot I had ever seen. I visited it in June,
1834, before the white man had marred its beauty.
The wild grass was then about a foot high and in-
terspersed with it were the most beautiful flowers
that I had ever beheld. * * * * While gazing upon
its beauty and inhaling its delicious fragrance, I
formed a resolution that, Providence permitting, I
would erect upon it a dwelling. ' '
A squatter whose name and fame are alike well
nigh forgotten, Blashford or Blashfield, had erected
here some kind of habitation as early as 1829 or '30.
He owned no land and remained but a short time.
Perhaps he should no more be counted than the sur-
veyors who preceded him.
The first actual and permanent settler here, or in
Eaton County, was Capt. Reuben Fitzgerald, in
July, 1833. His habitation was so unlike that of
15
16 PIONEEK HISTOEY OF EATOX COUNTY.
other pioneers that it is jDerhaps well to pause to
describe the early homes of pioneers here and, brief-
ly, elsewhere. The item will interest the children
of this and all succeeding generations. Pioneers
everywhere readily adapt themselves and their
houses to the available material. Near the rocky
beds of western streams shelters were built from the
easily quarried flagstones and covered by buffalo
hides or other available material. In the distant
southwest, an almost rainless region, walls were
built of adobe or dried mud. The enclosed space
covered with poles over which was thro^vn a few
inches of earth. This made an admirable shelter
from blistering sun and biting winds but would
have been quite inadequate if rains were copious,
but thousands of ''greasers" are dwelling in these
today. On the great western prairies temporary
homes were the well known sod-houses.
The most of Eaton County had abundant crude
building material in the densely crowded forests
where the straight trunks of trees were often sixty
feet in height before a limb was found. From these
trees straight logs, about a foot in diameter and
from sixteen to forty feet in length, were cut and
from these their houses and barns were built. The
first shelter for the lone pioneer was usually a shanty
of such poles as he alone could handle and covered
with brush or bark and served for the few months
until the better house could be built. Sometimes the
shanty was of heavier and more permanent char-
BELLEVUE TOWNSHIP. 17
acter. A log pen sixteen feet square with wall higher
upon one side than the other and covered with split
half logs from hollow trees. These were laid side
by side trough up to convey the water to the lower
side. Crevices between were then covered by other
half logs reverse side up thus forming a roof imper-
vious to rain. The late Senator G. N. Potter and his
numerous brothers and sisters were reared to their
teens in a shanty of this kind where the village of
Potterville now stands. The ruder form of log
house was of rough logs encased in their bark,
notched together at the corners so as to lie close,
then the crevices chinked and plastered with mud.
This was roofed with shakes or long shingles riven
by hand. Holes were cut for door and window and
a hole perhaps six feet square at center of one end.
In this was built the open fireplace, enclosed with
stones laid in mud upon the outside, but the inside
opened into the house. A chimney was built of
sticks encased in mud and carried higher than the
peak of the rude habitation.
In the best kind of log house the logs were hewn
to square sticks of timber. These were dovetailed
at the corners thus forming solid walls. This was
called a "block-house" and was comparatively rare.
The Eagle Hotel at Charlotte was of this character,
hewn and finished by the Searls brothers and nearly
as smooth and perfect as a modern stuccoed house.
The most common character of log house here was
of quality between these two. Elm logs were com-
18 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
monly chosen and tlie bark removed. These were
then hewn upon one, the inner, side. When these
were finished and papered one would scarcely see,
when inside, that he was not in a ceiled and plastered
room.
When logs w^ere rolled up to a height of about
eight feet a longer log was placed at each end pro-
jecting perhaps ten feet rearward. Long rafters ex-
tended to the ends of these logs. The roof then
covered a veranda or porch but by them always
called a "stoop." This formed a convenient shelter
for tools, work shop or fuel. A fireplace was built
of bricks with brick chimney. The house was one
and a half stories in height with floors, sometimes of
sawed lumber but more frequently of ''puncheon"
or boards riven by hand from straight splitting
trees. All cooking was by the open fireplace which
was provided with an iron crane from which de-
pended iron hooks of various lengths to support
the kettles over the flames or coal. Baking was in a
tin baker placed before the fire. The frame suj)-
ported bread tins in which were placed the loaves.
A polished tin beneath sloping toward the fire re-
flected the heat against the under side of loaves
and a cover above sloping from the fire reflected
heat downward. I well remember when my sister
and I were stationed one at each side the fireplace
to watch the loaves and to call mother when the
ends began to brown that she might lift the cover
and turn the loaves around to brown the other end.
BELLEVUE TOWNSHIP. 19
After 1850, cook-stoves came into general use in
the county. Studding and siding could then be ob-
tained at saw mills and with these the "stoop" was
enclosed to form pantry and kitchen where the stove
was installed. In such a home the writer was
reared until twelve years old.
When Capt. Fitzgerald arrived at Bellevue with
his wife and three children, with two yoke of oxen
drawing his one wagon with his earthly possessions,
he upturned the wagon box for a shelter which with
some additions of bark formed his first temporary
home. He found here what he thought was a deserted
Indian village with wigwams of poles and bark. He
took these flakes of bark, some four feet square, to
roof a better shanty. When the Indians returned
they were very indignant. It became necessary to
send to Marshall for an interpreter. His explana-
tion with sundry gifts quieted the Indians and all
was well. The scattered burr-oaks had much the
form of modern apple trees and were ill adapted for
building purposes. The Captain had but little
money to buy material but his friend Hunsiker, back
east and planning to come soon, advanced the money
and bought lumber in Marshall and Capt. Fitzgerald
built the first two houses and, very exceptional in
the history of pioneering in Michigan, they were
framed houses instead of log. They moved into the
new house before it was completed and before it was
roofed. During a severe storm the Captain and
another man held a buffalo robe over the sick bed
20 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATOjST COUNTY.
of Mrs. Fitzgerald. On November 12, 1834, she gave
birtli to a daughter, Sarah A., the first white child
born in Eaton County, and on February 13, 1837, she
gave birth to a son, Edwin. She succumbed, as did
many another, to the hardships of pioneer life and
died sixteen days after this birth. The Captain
remained a widower nearly five years. He always
regretted his lack of early education but now made
up for it, in part, by marrying a very intelligent
lady, Florinda, daughter of Judge Eldred of Climax.
The Judge was a man of some eminence, twice in
Michigan legislature and for many years president
of Kalamazoo Baptist College. This second wife
bore the Captain seven children, some of them living-
more than a score of years into the twentieth cen-
tury.
I have already mentioned the earliest entries of
land in Eaton County ; one in Vermontville in 1829,
one in Oneida in 1831, two entries in what is now the
heart of Charlotte in 1832. All of these were by
speculators who probably never saw their purchases.
Another entry was made in Bellevue in 1832 by
Isaac E. Crary. At that time he was a resident of
Marshall but his interests in Eaton County in a man-
ner antedates them all. He was twice our member
of the legislature and, while his friend and neighbor,
Rev. John D. Pierce is counted the father of the
Michigan school system, Mr. Crary was its legisla-
tive father, carrying into successful enactment into
law the plans of Father Pierce. Mr. Crary became
BELLEVUE TOWNSHIP. 21
our representative in Congress and was so popular
with his neighbors that the first male child born in
the county was given his full name, Isaac E. Crary
Hickok.
Mr. Crary was a partner in erecting the first
flouring mill in the county. The inexhaustible beds
of superior lime stone found at Bellevue proved a
most valuable acquisition for Eaton and adjoining
counties. The ashery here and the purchase of
''black salts," for which they paid cash and which
they made into saleratus, furnished almost the only
cash known to the pioneers for many years. Trade
was by barter and taxes were paid by ''road war-
rants." Pioneers took jobs at cutting out State
roads and took in pay "w^arrants" which were good
for taxes if naught else. The Territorial Legisla-
ture enacted in March, 1835, that "the County of
Eaton shall be organized into a township by the
name of Belleville, and the first township meeting
shall be held at such place as the sheriff of Calhoun
County shall appoint within said County of Eaton."
The petitioners were poor penmen and the name
misconstrued. That enactment has never been re-
pealed but the name was never used in that form
and Bellevue is doubtless now correct by "adverse
possession" so to speak.
The election was held as ordered in the log meet-
ing house. At that time the township of five hun-
dred seventy-six square miles contained but four
inhabitants who had been here long enough to en-
22 PIONEER HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
title tliem to vote: Reuben Fitzgerald, Sylvanus
Hunsiker, Calvin Plielps and James Kimberly.
They made Jolm T. Hayt clerk of the meeting and
ordered Calvin Phelps to proclaim the polls open.
This he did, stepping to the front, with his hat off,
in a loud voice he proclaimed, ''The poll of this
election is now open. I warn all men, under penalty
of the law, to keep the peace." The four electors
proceeded to elect each other to all the best offices
and gave leaner ones to the later comers. All votes
were cast within half an hour but, in accordance
with the law, they sat the whole day through. There
could be no question but it was a legal election. The
law could now be enforced.
At a meeting of the board May 8, 1841, it was first
''resolved, that in the opinion of the board, the pub-
lic good does not require the licensing of three places
for the sale of spirituous liquors in this town; car-
ried. Second, resolved that A. Grant have license
for selling spirituous liquors. It was lost. Third,
resolved, that license be granted to the stores in this
village, with the exception of selling spirituous
liquors. Carried. Fourth, resolved, that A. Grant
have license, if he calls for it, with the exception of
selling spirituous liquors and wines. Carried."
The first sermon in Eaton County was delivered
in 1833, at the house of Reuben Fitzgerald, by Rev.
John D. Pierce of Marshall, a Presbyterian minister.
In the spring of 1834, three Methodist families set-
tled in the place and Rev. Mr. Hobart preached the
BELLEVUE TOWNSHIP. 23
first Methodist sermon. In the fall of 1834, Rev.
Davison organized the first Methodist class, consist-
ing of five members, J. Kimberly, leader.
In 1835, there were in Bellevue the following: R.
Fitzgerald, S. Hunsiker, D. Mason, Calvin Phelps,
Asa Phelps, L. Campbell, John Hayt, J. Kimberly
and J. Hutchinson, with their wives ; B. Bader, J. B.
Crary, W. Streeter, N. F. Blossom, R. Slatel and
J. Tripp, all single men. There was a saw mill and
at this time a plat was made for a village and the
sale of lots began at from $5 to $20 each. A log
cabin was erected for school and meeting-house. On
the 4th of August, John T. Hayt received his com-
mission as postmaster. The office was established
with the understanding that the mail was to be car-
ried to Marshall once a week without cost to the
government. Capt. Fitzgerald volunteered to carry
the mail for four years for $15 a quarter or for what
the office collected until that sum w^as reached. Re-
ceipts for the first quarter were $2.25, postage being
twenty-five cents for a letter. It was more than a
year before the Captain received his full payment of
$15, but by March, 1838, receipts were over $82 per
quarter.
The spring of 1835 arrived with no bridge across
Battle Creek and no road leading northward. By
subscriptions in Marshall and Bellevue $155 was
raised for this purpose and the road opened to the
Thornapple. There it stopped until Vermont Col-
24 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATOX COUNTY.
ony was settled when the road was continued to
Ionia.
Inhabitants in Bellevue were very few but very
patriotic in 1835. They resolved that July 4th should
be celebrated according to program provided by
committee. This was done and the Declaration of
Independence was read by Rev. Asa Phelps and a
dinner provided by the citizens. All this before
there was any settler elsewhere within the county.
In 1836, Lawrence Campbell built the first hotel.
The years '36 and '37 brought new inhabitants,
some of the names well known throughout the county
in later years: the Woodbury brothers. Dr. Clark,
E. Jarvis, S. Higgins, E. FoUett, E. Bond, two
Averys, H. Jervis, Capt. Hickok, W. R. Carpenter,
Willard Davis, G. S. Browning, J. T. Ellis, S. An-
drews and others. Several of these soon after re-
moved to Vermontville.
In 1836, the first district school in the county was
taught by Hepsebeth Hutchinson. The next year
the school was taught by Willard Davis, Esq., who
also did lay preaching on Sunday in the same log
school house.
Capt. J. W. Hickok attempted to reach his land
four miles east with his worldly goods, as usual,
drawn by an ox team. His wife 's foot came in con-
tact with a small tree and her limb was broken. The
Captain returned to Bellevue for help. Men made a
rude litter and carried her back to the village where
Dr. Carpenter set her limb. She remained in bed
BELLEVUE TOWNSHIP. 25
nine weeks and in tlie meantime, on September 7,
1836, gave birth to the first male child born in the
county, Isaac E. C. Hickok, afterward well known
throughout the county; a student at Olivet College
the first day its doors were opened as a college and
later principal of schools in Charlotte, and later
still a lawyer there. He was honored with county
offices which in turn he honored.
About this time a large boat was built with the
purpose of boating lime down the Creek and into
the Kalamazoo River. The boat was capsized on
its first attempt and the enterprise ended in dis-
aster as did the building of the first lime kiln, but
the lime industry survived and is still an important
enterprise.
An early historian relates that the pioneers of
Bellevue were exceptionally fond of fun. I can here
relate but one incident. Huckleberries were found
in vast quantities in a swamp near Mr. Ackley's but
only a preacher named Reynolds and one other man
knew the exact location and this they refused to
disclose. Hinman and Bracket determined to locate
the pickers and went round the swamp in opposite
directions, hallooing often but getting no response.
Finally Hinman found a loaded bush and placing a
handful in his mouth was compelled to cough. The
coughing frightened the preacher who now pounded
a tree and shouted *'steboy" and then ran out of
the swamp and, without stopping, to Mr. Ackley's
house where he reported that ''a very large bear
26 PIONEEE HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
had chased him out of the swamp ! ' ' The reverend
preacher was soon afterward called elsewhere.
Among others w^ho came to Bellevue in 1836 was
Sylvester Day. I relate his experience not because
it was exceptional but because it was typical. Com-
ing all the way from Orleans County in New York
with an ox team he reached Bellevue in October
with his family, daughter and two sons. They built
their shanty and slept in it the second night after
arrival although it had no roof and their bed was
planks split from a log. The roof was soon made of
troughs dug from basswood logs and the floor split
from the same. In this shanty they lived eighteen
months. The following spring w^as so wet it was
impossible to burn, and corn was planted among the
logs. This crop was killed by early frost while it
was yet green. That fall they sowed seven acres of
wheat and from it secured a good crop and their
prospects brightened. Before this harvest times
were hard. Their means were exhausted. Flour
was $25 a barrel and they were faced by hunger,
but after that time they never knew want.
Bellevue township comprised the entire county
until March 11, 1837, when Vermontville was set
off to comprise the northwest quarter of the county
and Eaton the southeast quarter. The following
year Oneida was organized to include the northeast
quarter. Each of these was afterward divided into
four of our present townships.
EATON TOWNSHIP
As we have seen the township of Bellevue com-
prised the whole of Eaton County until, by act of
legislature approved March 11, 1837, it was subdi-
vided and the Township of Eaton was created com-
prising the whole of the southeast quarter of the
county. Who was the first settler of this vast area?
To be the first in any laudable enterprise is always
a coveted honor, and the title ofttimes in dispute.
''First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts
of his countrymen," was written of George Wash-
ington but if you ask a republican, today, to whom
the description applies, he will at once think of his
well beloved McKinley. He was first in one war
and first in the hearts of some of his countrymen.
If you ask a democrat he will perhaps choose to
divide the honor between Woodrow Wilson who was
first in one war and Wm. J. Bryan who is sometimes
in peace. So, too, the honor of this first settlement
is contested. I have a letter by John Montgomery
saying, "I came to Eaton County the 1st of January,
1836. I was the first settler in the east half of the
county." This would doubtless be true if he had
added, "with the exception of one residence in the
extreme west, near the present site of Charlotte."
I have also a history written, printed and sold forty
years ago in which I read, ''The first settler near the
27
28 PIONEEK HISTOEY OF EATON COUXTY.
beautiful prairie where now stands the city of Char-
lotte, was Jonathan Searls, a veteran of the war of
1812. He settled with his family, on the southeast
corner of the prairie in November, 1836."
E. A. Foote, Esq., gave very much study to this
early history. He was painstaking and thorough.
He had facilities for deciding disputed points as no
one can have at this time. He wrote with detail
of circumstance and vouched for the accuracy and
truth of his statements. Mr. Foote read a paper
before the Eaton County Pioneer Society in 1877, in
which he said, "Jonathan and Samuel Searls found
their way through from Bellevue in October, 1835.
They left Mrs. Searls at Bellevue until they could
cut a track through for a team. They worked five
days cutting this track, and then hired a team to
bring Mrs. Searls and the household goods through.
Jonathan and Samuel had no team to work with for
one year after they came. By their o^\ti unaided
strength they had to cut and move to the spot the
logs for Samuel Searls' house, and then raise the
logs to their places on the building. When these two
men rolled up these logs there was not another house
or family within eight miles."
The first land purchased of the government with-
in the limits of the present Township of Eaton was,
as already related, by G. W. Barns in 1832, in the
heart of the present city of Charlotte. He lived at
Gull Prairie and never settled here. In 1833, land
was bought here by J. Torrey and by H. G. Rice, but
EATON TOWNSHIP. 29
I find no notice of land purchased in 1834. In 1835,
land was purchased by S. Hamlin, T. R. Smith, S.
Aulls, S. Searls, J. Searls, T. Lawrence, R. J. Wells,
C E. Stewart, and L. H. Sanf ord. In 1836, purchas-
ers were numerous, including A, Spicer, H. Janes,
W. Wall, H. and E. Moe, D. Bryant, 0. D. Butler,
0. J. Holcomb, J. F. Pixley, W. D. Thompson, W.
and J. and G. Southworth, A. Smoke, P. W^hitcomb,
A. L. Baker, and Amos Kinne.
To Mr. Foote I am again indebted for the follow-
ing:
''Wm. Wall and J. F. Pixley came from Niagara
County, New York, in June, 1836. Leaving their
families for a time at Sandstone, in Jackson County,
the two men came into Eaton upon section 25. About
the first of July, 1837, they moved their families in
and it was ten weeks before their wives saw any
person save their families and numerous Indians."
In October, 1836, four months after locating six
miles east of Charlotte, Mr. Wall first became aware
of the existence of the prairie where now stands
Charlotte. He then learned that the Searls broth-
ers and Stephen and Amos Kinne were ahead of
him in settling here. These with Mr. Wall and Mr.
Pixley were the only men in Eaton Township. Dur-
ing the same October, 1836, James, George and Wm.
Southworth moved in from Orleans County, New
York, and built on section 24 near Mr. Wall's, thus
adding to the "Wall Settlement." (Here are con-
flicting dates. Wall discovered Kinne in October,
30 PIONEER HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
1836, but we are assured elsewhere that the Kinne
brothers came in January, 1837. It is probable
that this discovery and the arrival of the South-
worths was in 1837.) The first schoolhouse in the
four townships was built in the Wall neighborhood
in 1839, but the first school was taught by the wife
of John Eiley in her house. During the winter of
1836- '37, Mr. Wall went to mill with an ox team
to Swainsville, twenty miles beyond Jackson, but
during the next year a mill was started in Jackson
only thirty miles away.
Facts from E. A. Foote's oration: The first birth
in the east half of the county, and the second in the
entire county, was Phoebe K. Searls, daughter of
Samuel Searls, born on August 7, 1836. The mother,
Eutli Searls, died of quick consumption the follow-
ing June when this child was but ten months old, one
of the most pathetic deaths of which we can read.
The men were in the field at work. No one else,
save the infant, was in the house when she died
about sunset. There was only one other woman for
many miles around. Stephen Kinne and wife and
brother Amos had found their way in on the first day
of January, 1837. They had built a log house six-
teen feet square just south of Battle Creek and two
miles south of Charlotte. Stephen Kinne and wife
crossing the creek upon a log and going northeast
across the present fair ground, they reached the
house of mourning about dark and remained all
night. As no coffin was to be had here she had to
EATON TOWNSHIP. 31
be taken to Bellevue for decent burial. Japhet
Fisber, their hired man, started before daylight for
Bellevue to prepare for the funeral. They put bed-
ding into the box of an ox sled upon which they
placed the lifeless form. Samuel and Jonathan, with
their oxen drawing the sled over rough roads and
fording streams, went to Bellevue, while Stephen
Kinne and wife remained to care for the children.
Again quoting Mr. Foote, ''Uncle Samuel was very
badly dressed for such an occasion. He had worn
out all of his clothes working hard to build a home
for that woman. His corduroy pants were in tatters
clear to his knees. His ' wa 'mus ' was very ragged. A
fragment of an old woolen cap was on his head. But
Japhet Fisher sent his trunk of clothes by David
Kinne, then on his way to meet Samuel. They met
at the Indian village in Walton and Uncle Samuel
was decently dressed. The hearts of Bellevue
people quickly responded to the call of Japhet
Fisher. They turned out to meet the ox team. The
women took hold and laid her tenderly in a coffin
and the next day the rites were performed. Like
many another mother she succumbed to unendur-
able hardship of pioneer life.
"Although Uncle Samuel had to take the young
babe back to New^ York, though his home and hopes
were blasted, he did not give up. He brought back
his sister Julia to keep house for him. They had
built a house for Uncle Jonathan further west, on
Searls street. Jonathan went east and in Novem-
32 PIONEEE HISTOKY OF EATON COUNTY.
ber, 1837, he brought back his wife, Aunt Sally
Searls. On their way in from Bellevue they stayed
over night at Capt. Hickok's in WaltoUo"
It was this log house of Uncle Jonathan 's that be-
came, for a time, the headquarters for the county.
Aunt Sally did the county cooking for years. It was
perhaps her efficiency and popularity that gave rise
to the claim that Jonathan Searls was the first set-
tler. Aunt Sally's arrival was more than two years
after the Searls brothers had first settled here, still
she reports, "We seldom saw a woman."
Samuel Hamlin was the first supervisor in the
township and also the first treasurer, but Wm. Wall
was one of the most widely known of the pioneers,
and a good specimen of them he proved to be. He
had the will and the energy to encounter the hard-
ships of pioneer life and to clear away the dense
forest. "He was a good farmer, a good father, a
good neighbor, a valuable citizen and in every sense
of the word a good man. ' ' The first girl born in the
township was his daughter Euth. The first religious
meeting was held in his house, the sermon being
delivered by Rev. Jackson. The first marriage was
also in his house when in 1837 Otis V. Cranson mar-
ried Elizabeth Babcock. In the fall of 1838 Mr.
Wall narrowly escaped hydrophobia. A large rabid
wolf passed through biting every animal he could
meet. He bit several hogs for his neighbors and
three for Mr. Wall. Not thinking that the wolf was
rabid he put his valuable dog in pursuit. He fol-
EATON TOWNSHIP. 33
lowed with liis axe and soon found the dog and wolf
in deadly embrace. Mr. Wall seized the wolf by the
tail from which he found it difficult and dangerous
to let go. After a fearful tussle of a full hour (or
so it seemed) the man and dog were victorious and
the wolf was killed and for it he received a bounty of
eight dollars. The dog and hogs all went mad about
a week later and all had to be killed.
The first framed barns in Eaton were built by
James Pixley and N. P. Frink and one soon after
by Amos Kinne. At this raising Samuel Searls was
the boss. He ordered the men to set up the bent.
They, thinking it was fully up, made no move. Then
with an oath he said, ''I say, set it up there." They
did and the bent went clear over, but none were
killed.
James Southworth was the first of his family to
move in, ' ' settling with his family in February, 1837.
(Thus confirming my surmise written above.) He
built a log house during the winter, heating the
stones for the chimney back that the mortar might
stick to them ; the chimney was then built of mud and
sticks.
Among the early settlers were A. L. Baker,
Benijah Claflin, Geo. Allen and his sons Sidney and
Harry, Nathan P. Frink, Jonas and John Childs.
In 1844, there were 59 male residents in the present
Township of Eaton. They came at first by way of
Kalamazoo, then Battle Creek, Gull Prairie and
Bellevue. Later they learned of a shorter route to
34 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
Eaton County, viz. "gee off" at Jackson and "liaw
to " at Spicerville ; tlius men were located but a few
miles apart and not to discover each other for one
or even two years; and hence conflicting claims to
priority of settlement.
Indians were everywhere but quite harmless to
the pioneers of Eaton County. Never rapping at the
door, but with moccasined feet they entered our
homes as silent as a cat to utter their cheerful
"hello" which was pronounced, glumly, "Ugh," in
the startled ear of the busy housewife. Wild ber-
ries were found and wild game was abundant and
furnished much of the living of the early pioneers.
Venison suiDplied the place of beef and mutton, so
fully that I was quite a grown lad before I learned
the taste of beef. Animals that would soon grow
into the much needed oxen and cows were not to be
readily slaughtered. In fact the earlier trappers,
living almost entirely upon hunted animals, called
the flesh of the fatter animals meat, but the lean
venison of the deer took the place of, and by them
was often called "bread." Fierce animals abounded
but, unless attacked, were seldom in any measure
dangerous. Packs of wolves could often be heard
howling at night but, like bears, they were shy and
very seldom seen, but both were sufficiently com-
mon to commit unwelcome depredations. Pork was
the favorite meat for bears, but wolves took the
sheep and small young animals. I have heard many
stories of wolves following at the heels of a man
EATON TOWNSHIP. 35
walking through the forest at night and carrying
fresh meat upon his back, but never of actual at-
tack. If he carried a. torch, which was a needed ac-
cessory, he avoided any possible danger by turning
and swinging this in the faces of his pursuers. The
following approaches as near to an actual attack as
any authentic story I have read so I quote it entire :
''In the fall of 1837, Wm. Wall, Chauncy Free-
man, James Pixley and George and James South-
worth went on a deer hunt in the north part of the
township, on a branch of the Thornapple River. J.
Southw^orth stationed himself on the runway, while
the others separated for the purpose of driving in
the deer. Ere long they heard the report of South-
worth's rifle, followed quickly by a second, and next
they heard him call. They returned at once and
found he had been beset by two large gray wolves.
He had seen three of them passing and shot one,
whereupon the others turned and came close to him,
one on each side, before he had time to reload. As
one of the animals stepped back a little Southworth
poured some powder into his rifle and rolled a bullet
down, and shot the brute in the neck, but did not
kill him. At that juncture Wm. Wall appeared, and
the wounded wolf went into a thicket. Pixley, Free-
man and Wall followed, to drive him out, while the
two Southworths stood ready to shoot. Mr. Freeman
came upon the wolf lying down and looking him
in the face. He forgot to shoot. The brute ran out
of the thicket and George Southworth shot him. Mr.
36 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
Wall said tlie wolf was the largest he ever saw,
standing as high as his waist."
Some wolf, eh ! brother pioneers ? But exaggera-
tion can well be forgiven. It was an exciting
occasion. The w^olves would not probably have
come near Mr. Southworth if he had refrained from
shooting. His temerity cost them all a good scare.
Such were the vicissitudes of pioneer life in Eaton
Township.
HAMLIN TOWNSHIP
The township now called Hamlin was, as we have
seen, for a time a part of Bellevue and later of
Eaton Township. By act of legislature approved
March 20, 1841, it was ''set off and organized into
a township by the name of Tyler, and the first town-
ship meeting shall be held at the house of Freeman
H. Barr in said township." It was evidently named
for John Tyler, then vice president, but the legis-
lature could scarcely have foreseen that within a
month John Tyler should become president to fill
out three years and eleven months of Taylor 's presi-
dential term. The township so remained for nine
years until the village of Eaton Rapids having
grown upon its north boundary line, and the town
meetings and most of the offices being held in the
village it was petitioned to have the two united. By
act of legislature March 14, 1850, the two were
united in one with the name of Eaton Rapids, and
the first meeting "shall be held at the Eaton Rapids
Hotel on the first Monday in April, 1850." It was
provided that the present officers shall cast lots to
see which shall continue in office to conduct the elec-
tion.
This union continued nineteen years until by act
approved March 26, 1869, this township was again
detached and given the name of Hamlin after one
37
38 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
of its early and distinguislied settlers, Samuel Ham-
lin. Of its earliest settlement there is no dispute.
Five townships in Eaton County were first set-
tled in 1836, but John Montgomery led them all by
settling here on the first day of January. A man of
such sterling worth and enterprise as to demand
here extended biography. A descendant of the
proud and ancient Scottish family of Montgomery,
he was born in the north of Ireland and brought
here when but one year old, and lived for some time
in Oneida County, New York. On March 2, 1831,
he set out on foot for Michigan. He walked all the
way through Canada and back again, reaching home
the last day of March. He had purchased one hun-
dred sixty acres in Washtenaw County. Here he
learned what many pioneers were very slow to learn,
that burr-oak plains are very much more desirable
than heavily timbered lands. In 1835 he sold out
for $2150 and started in December for the wilds of
Eaton County. He purchased nearly five hundred
acres on ' ' Montgomery Plains. ' ' On reaching home
he returned almost immediately, taking a yoke of
oxen and accompanied by his brother Robert and
Mr. Shepherd. From Henrietta, Jackson County,
they cut their road for twenty miles and spent three
days building a shanty. He returned for his
family and on January first moved in, having
hired a Mr. Nobles to come with one team.
His brother Robert and Mr. Bush also came.
$2150 was a princely sum in those days and the wis-
HAMLIISr TOWNSHIP. 39
dom of Ms selection of burr-oak plains was quickly
demonstrated. He was able to sow sixty acres of
wheat the first year and realized a good crop which
found ready sale at his door at $1.00 a bushel, for
neighbors were now surrounding him. Col. Mont-
gomery was elected supervisor a number of times
and in 1849 he was elected to the State legislature.
He began his military career in Washtenaw County,
was minute man in the Black Hawk War and, pre-
vious to the Toledo hostilities, was commissioned
as Major and promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel.
When in the legislature he was commissioned by
Governor Barry as Brigadier-General, but the earl-
ier title clung to him as to ''Teddy" Roosevelt. He
was alway Colonel to his friends and admirers. But
to return to his neighbors.
Land was purchased from the government in
Hamlin in 1835 by twenty-three different persons
and in 1836 by eighty-one, a list far too extended
to recite here. Doubtless some of these were specu-
lators who never saw the land.
The Colonel's first neighbor was Silas Loomis,
six miles away. Ira Turner and J. W. Toles came
soon and a little later Elijah Wilcox. In September
came Johnson Montgomery. His land on ''Mont-
gomery Plains" was across the town line but for
a time he made his home with his brother the Col-
onel. The first township meeting was at Spicerville
and from a published article by Fred Spicer, I copy :
"I came to Eaton County with my father, Amos
40 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
Spicer, my mother, two sisters, my uncle, P. E.
Spicer, and cousin, Daniel Bateman, all from Mid-
dlebury, Ohio. On the third day of June, 1836, we
landed at Spicerville and found a double log house
which my father and uncle, P. E. Spicer, Daniel
Bateman, Benjamin Knight, Charles Hanchet and
son had built. It was without door or window, but
had puncheon for floors and boxwood bark for upper
floor, w^hich material they procured from the forest
without the help of saw mill for there was no mill
of any description nearer than Clinton, fifty miles
from us and no neighbor, as we believed, nearer
than twelve miles, save the red man's wigwam.
''This region was without a road except the old
Clinton road which my uncle Samuel Hamlin and
C. C. Darling had cut through from Clinton to the
Thornapple Eiver the fall before. This road had
just been completed and accepted when Amos and
P. E. Spicer and Daniel Bateman arrived at Jack-
son in the fall of 1835. Amos Spicer had come to
seek a home and would like to find a good water-
power as he purposed to build a saw and grist mill
if he could find a good location. Uncle Samuel Ham-
lin and Mr. Darling told him that Grand River and
Spring Brook both had good powers. With knap-
sacks stored with blankets, pork, beans and sand-
wiches they started for the north woods with no
guides save the blazed trees of the government
surveys made some twelve years before.
"This party consisted of Amos and P. E. Spicer,
HAMLIN TOWNSHIP. 41
Samuel Hamlin, Daniel Bateman and C. C. Darling.
They spent over a week wandering around and
looking over lands even to where Eaton Rapids now
stands. Amos Spicer had saved money as master
millwright and considerable of the lands they se-
lected was taken by him as the records still show.
When their grub was gone they feasted, not on
'locust and wild honey' but upon wild honey and
wild turkey, both of which abounded. A tiresome
journey brought them back to Jackson and the next
day they started for the land office at Kalamazoo to
secure the lands they had selected before anyone
should jump their claims as was often done by a set
of hawk-eyed fellows often lying in wait about the
land office. They got back to Jackson about De-
cember 1st, 1835, and then returned to their home
in Ohio. The next spring Amos and P. E. Spicer
returned to Michigan with a strong wagon laden
with provisions and household goods and drawn by
four yoke of oxen and these driven by Daniel Bate-
man and Charles Hanchet. A one-horse wagon, two
cows and a calf escorted them. They reached Jack-
son about the 25th of May and the next day started
for the woods at Spicerville where they built the
cabin before described and which we reached on the
third day of June, 1836. ' '
As soon as possible a sawmill was started upon
the same site where three successive mills have
stood. The family consisted of all those named
above with George Allyn and about fourteen hired
42 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
men. The three women here were, as always among
pioneers, fully as active as the men for in addition
to these they had to feed two to four land lookers
and shelter them over night for they had nowhere
else to go. All timber and lumber used in construct-
ing this mill was hewn by hand from the forest
products. After a long summer's work the mill be-
gan to turn its water wheel in October and sawing
by water power was begun. P. E. Spicer and Ben-
jamin Knight were boss sa^\^ers. They found
ready market for what lumber they could spare but
most of their cut was used for the gristmill and
three framed houses they w^ere starting at Eaton
Rapids. This beginning of a village was all sawed,
framed and hauled from Spicerville. A rude vil-
lage plat was surveyed early in the spring of 1836.
Two ox sleds drawn by four yoke of oxen hauled the
first run of stone to the mill in Eaton Rapids where
they continued to grind for more than forty years.
Previous to this corn had been pounded upon flat
stumps for meal and wheat flour was almost un-
known, TMien the mill was raised men came twenty
miles to help. Bateman and Knight spent two days
inviting men. They came the night before ; helped
raise the mill the next day, had a dance at night, and
went home the third day.
Fred Knight again relates the discovery of their
neighbors : ' * The first we knew we had neighbors
on Montgomery's Plains, one of our cows strayed
away and Daniel Bateman, while looking for it, came
HAMLIN TOWNSHIP. 43
to tlie river and, hearing some cowbell on the other
side, pulled off his boots and pants and crossed over
and followed until he found the cattle. Hearing
someone pounding a little further on went on to
where he found John Montgomery splitting rails
on the farm where his stone house now stands.
Meeting a stranger in the woods we would learn his
location, section, town and range and know his dis-
tance thereby from our habitation. Thus chance
acquaintances soon became neighbors and soon
friends, tried and true, helping each other in divers
ways at raisings and logging bees for those who had
nothing. All of this helped to bind us together as
in one family as only can be witnessed in pioneer
settlements. ' '
Hon. Amos Spicer was one of the most highly
honored and esteemed citizens.
Allen Conklin assisted in building the first bridge
across Grand River at the county line.
Rev. Wm. W. Crane was the first resident minister
and is said to have married all the people and to
have preached all the funeral sermons.
George W. Bentley, Jacob Gilman and T. N.
Stringham were among early settlers and the list of
resident taxpayers in 1844 includes one hundred one
names. Wm. W. Crane was the first supervisor
thus supervising their ways on earth as well as the
way to heaven.
The first teacher in Tyler was Miss Ruth Horn
who taught in 1837 in the shanty of George Y.
44 PIONEEK HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
Cowan. Miss Lucina Emerson taught in 1838, and
previous to 1849 tliirty-six teachers had been li-
censed in this township.
One numerous family, because of their priority in
several aspects, merit especial mention. Six broth-
ers named Montgomery were early pioneers of
Hamlin and its immediate vicinity. The father of
these was Eobert Montgomery of Ireland but of
Scottish descent. When twenty-one years old he mar-
ried Anna Sproul, then but seventeen. They became
the parents of sixteen children, ten of whom lived
to maturity. Three years after their marriage, in
the fall of 1805, they emigrated to America then hav-
ing one son, John, one year old. His story I have al-
ready told — settling in Hamlin on the first day of
January, 1836, and believing himself the earliest
settler in the east half of the county although it
proved later that the Searls brothers, on the prairie
near Charlotte, had preceded him. He became the
father of four children, Alvira, Johnson, Scott, and
Albert.
His brother Johnson was a pioneer here a little
later but the same season. He became father of
seven, viz: Peter Dudley, Helen, Amanda, Celesta,
Ezra, Jock and Robert. The latter became Supreme
Court Judge in Michigan.
Thomas, of whom I learn but little, became father
of Eliza, Philinda, Mary and Warren.
Robert, I have already mentioned as one of the
earliest comers, became father of Alonzo, Almeron,
HAMLIN TOWNSHIP. 45
Clifford, Sarah, Fred and Frank. Clifford and
Fred, I think are still living in 1922.
William, the fifth brother, came at a little later
date. He became father of Elmina, Martin V.,
Richard A., William B., Louisa and Malvina. Of
these Martin V. was doubtless best known, a prom-
inent attorney of Eaton Rapids and Lansing, Com-
missioner of Patents at Washington, then Judge of
District Court, D. C, then returned to Lansing as-
piring to U. S. Senate which, unfortunately, he did
not reach. His brother Richard was also a promi-
nent lawyer of Lansing. The next brother, William
B., is now residing in Detroit and to him I am in-
debted for much of this information.
The youngest of the six pioneer brothers was
Alexander who had no children. He with his broth-
er William, went to California in 1849, the earliest of
the argonauts, going around ''the horn" in a sailing
vessel and being at one time fifty-six days without
sight of land. I do not learn that they returned with
acquired wealth but they certainly acquired addi-
tional pioneer experiences.
VERMONTVILLE TOWNSHIP
Considering the townships of the county in their
order of settlement we now skip diagonally across
the county to Vermontville. Its history is unique.
The first land ever purchased in the county was on
section 30 in this township by A. Sumner in 1829.
Why selected or purchased, nor of its disposition,
we know not. Perhaps like the second purchase
which was in Oneida, ''It was sold for taxes four
years later." Excepting for this one purchase it
was an unbroken government parcel when the agents
of the colony arrived to make their selection.
The Vermont Colony was essentially a religious
colony of Congregationalists who planned as nearly
as possible after the model of the Pilgrim Fathers.
In 1835, the Rev. Sylvester Cochrane visited Mich-
igan planning to settle permanently but he found
settlers so scattered that it seemed impossible that
they might have either religious or educational ad-
vantages. He conceived the plan of colonization
and returned to East Pultney and Castleton, Ver-
mont, and disclosed his plans to prospective emi-
grants. On March 27, 1836, at a large meeting,
plans were perfected. Very extended ''Eules and
Regulations ' ' were adopted and signed. After num-
erous ''whereases" and "resolved," eleven definite
rules were adopted, among them to liberally sup-
46
VEKMONTVILLE TOWNSHIP. 47
port the gospel, to observe the Sabbath and to ''per-
petuate the same literary privileges we are here per-
mitted to enjoy." Forty-two men signed this and
a prohibition pledge was signed by all. It was
"voted" that a committee of two be appointed to
investigate the character and standing of all appli-
cants to unite with the colony; that three agents be
selected to visit Michigan and select suitable lands ;
that they be authorized to purchase 5,760 acres of
land, nine square miles or the fourth of a township ;
that no individual should be permitted to take more
than one farm of 160 acres and one village lot of
ten acres; that anyone joining the colony shall ad-
vance $212.50, the price of the 170 acres ; that each
one shall also give his note for $25 payable in two
years to apply toward building a meeting-house.
Rev. S. Cochrane and I. C. Culver were chosen
the committee for investigating characters of appli-
cants and Col. J. B. Scovill, Deacon S. S. Church
and Wm. G. Henry were elected agents to select and
purchase l^nds.
They started from Vermont April 2, 1836, and
S. S. Church afterward wrote an extended descrip-
tion of their journey and research from which I
quote as follows :
"From Troy, New York, we started on our ex-
pedition by stage. The roads were extremely bad
and much of the time we made but two miles an hour
and were obliged to travel by night which was very
fatiguing. We spent the first Sabbath at Auburn.
48 PIOXEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
We planned to go through Canada but at Lewiston
we were advised not to attempt it because of the
condition of the roads. We changed our plan and
went to Buffalo, Lake Erie was frozen over so we
continued by stage to Erie, Pennsylvania. Ice had
so cleared that a boat would start for Detroit soon.
Here we arrived safely but were obliged to wait a
day and night for the stage. Here again the roads
were bad and the stage an open wagon. We were
greatly fatigued upon our arrival at Battle Creek.
We went to Kalamazoo and returned to Battle Creek
and thence to Grand Rapids. We obtained a gTiide
and, other colonists joining us, we explored Barry
county and returned to Battle Creek. We found it
very difficult to find a tract of land unbroken by
swamps, marshes and cat-holes and were well nigh
discouraged.
''AATiile recruiting at Battle Creek we met Col.
Barns of Gull Prairie, who had assisted in survey-
ing Eaton County, had purchased land on the prairie
near its center and had secured for it the future
county seat. He assured us the amount of land re-
quired could be found in the present township of
Vermontville and he accompanied us to the land
office where I obtained a plat and found that but a
single entry had been made. I there received a
letter from others of our colony who were exploring
in Ionia County. At Battle Creek we met others of
our newly arrived colonists. We were two days
procuring supplies and reaching our destination.
VERMONTVILLE TOWNSHIP. 49
The third day we explored the grounds that pleased
us. All were satisfied. We went to Kalamazoo and
on May 27, 1836, I purchased the land the colonists
needed and about twenty lots in addition for others.
We then returned to the purchase and selected the
south half of section 21 for the village. W. J. Squier
had his surveying instruments with him and we laid
out the village as planned in Vermont.
''I returned to Vermont for my family but W. J.
Squier, W. S. Fairfield, Samuel and Charles Shel-
don, Levi Merrill, C. T. Moffitt and others stayed
and commenced chopping and clearing. They built
a house for the use of colonists upon their arrival,
and homes for themselves. I returned to Vermont
to bring my family. Counting a man 'settled' only
when his wife is with him, Bezaleel Taft was the
first settler, coming in that summer with his family.
Reuben Sanford moved in v/ith his wife and one
child and soon after a son was born being the first
birth in Vermontville. During the fall Jacob Fuller
and wife, E. S. Mead and wife, Jay Hawkins with
wife and child, and Mrs. Fairfield arrived.
* ' On the first Monday in October, agreeable to the
articles of the colony, a large number of the col-
onists assembled at the colony house, and after
prayer by Rev. Cochrane they proceeded to distrib-
ute the lands agreeable to the ninth resolution of
the articles. It was voted to appoint a committee
to make an assessment upon those farm lots which,
by location, were most desirable and valuable, to
50 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
raise tlie sum of $400 for expenses incurred by the
purchasing agents. Tliey then voted to distribute
the farm lots by lot, and each man drew and was
satisfied. I arrived at Battle Creek with my wife
and six children about the middle of November,
1836. Such was the condition of the roads it took
nine days to come from Detroit to Battle Creek by
wagon. All colonists had agreed to settle upon their
land by the autumn of '37 or their money might be
returned and their land sold to another. Several
colonists arrived at this time with their families,
among them Rev. Cochrane.
"The road from Bellevue, a mere underbrushed
trail, was now so cut with travel that it was well
nigh impassable. Some families were compelled to
camp out in the woods over night. Mud was every-
where and the Thornapple River overflowed its
banks so that, although there was a bridge, it was
at times impossible to approach it.
**In the month of April, 1837, W. J. Squier ar-
rived at 'the bottoms' and the water was so high
that neither his family nor his teams could cross
over. We learned of this and Roger Griswold and
W. S. Fairchild waded the river and took provisions
and took them to an Indian shanty not far off where
they stayed all night. The next morning Mr. Gris-
wold ferried Mrs. Squier and her little child across
the stream then some sixty rods in width. During
this month the Rev. Calvin Clark of Marshall visited
us and preached the first sermon here before our
VERMONTVILLE TOWNSHIP. 51
pastor and his family had arrived. Twenty-five
years later he again preached to us at our quarter
century celebration.
''In the month of March, 1837, the wife of E. S.
Mead sickened and died very suddenly. There was
no physician to be had; the ladies did what they
could but in vain. During the season S. S. Hoyt,
who lived six miles from any white inhabitant, and
whose wife had not seen a woman for many months,
brought his wife on an ox sled to the colony. After
two or three weeks she returned home rejoicing in
the possession of a fine daughter. Nor was this an
isolated case. One from Chester occurred the same
season and one from a remote part of our town.
''Indians resided part of the time in our vicinity
for several years. They were never troublesome
but gladly exchanged their product for ours. Sev-
eral families of Indians came from Canada and re-
mained here about a year. They were more civilized
than our Indians and could talk very good English.
They hunted and trapped and took jobs at chopping.
Some of them were devoted Christians, held Sabbath
meetings or attended our church. One of their
squaws died here and their men made a coffin and
desired Christian burial. Rev. Mr. Day had
preached at Mackinaw and was at this time laboring
with a Methodist class here. He preached the ser-
mon through an interpreter, the Indians attending.
"AVolves were abundant but seldom troublesome
except by their nightly serenades and occasionally
52 PIONEEK HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
taking a young animal. We often found tliey fol-
lowed us when we went to a neighbor's in the eve-
ning but unseen by us. In the fall of 1836, Orin Dick-
inson came from Bellevue, driving a horse team.
Roger Griswold started to drive the team back to
Bellevue. Night overtook him in the woods and he
found it impossible to proceed. Thinking he was
near Bellevue he ventured to halloo. He was an-
swered by a wolf. On calling again others answered
from different directions until it culminated in a
grand wolf chorus, continuing to cheer the gloomy
hours the whole night through with their heart thrill-
ing melody. ' '
Mr. Church wrote a long story of a lad, five years
old, who was lost in the woods and the whole colony
searched for him two days and finally found him un-
injured save by the mosquitoes; and of a cow that
was lodged during high water of the Thornapple
upon two large logs where she remained several
days until the water subsided. Feed was carried
to her in a boat for several days whereupon she was
milked and the milk boated homeward. He tells too
of a memorable bear hunt joined in by all the col-
onists. Bruin was killed and his pelt sold for $4.00
and with the proceeds a Sunday school library was
purchased.
The first frame house was built by W. J. Squier
and the first brick house by Roger Griswold. With
characteristic energy he employed masons from
Battle Creek who laid the basement wall and walls
VERMONTVILLE TOWNSHIP. 53
for the GMtire two stories within two weeks and re-
turned home.
The first school was in the summer of 1838, in a
private house. In the fall a log schoolhouse was
erected in which schools were regularly taught three
or four months every summer by a female teacher
and for the same time each winter by a male teacher.
In 1843 an academic association was formed to
build a structure to serve the double purpose of
academy and a church. Rev. Wm. U. Benedict, a
Presbyterian minister, a graduate of Williams Col-
lege and of Auburn Seminary, was employed as
teacher for several years. He came from his pas-
torate in Cayuga County, New York. This academy
was generally attended by the aspiring teachers of
this and Barry Counties, thus Vermontville became
the "Athens of Eaton County" until that proud
title was won away by Olivet.
An incident illustrates the piety of these Protes-
tant pioneers. The founder of the colony, Rev. S.
Cochrane, was absent minded and very little given
to manual labor but he became enamored of the en-
ticing task of maple sugar making. One Sunday in
springtime the colonists were assembled for wor-
ship but no pastor appeared. After long delay a
committee was appointed to visit his home and
learn of his possible sickness or death. (No tele-
phones at that time. ) They finally found him in his
sugar bush diligently boiling sap and entirely ob-
livious of the sacred character of the day. He had
54 PIONEEE HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
failed to "remember" tlie Sabbath day. They
never forgave him. Rev. AV. U. Benedict succeeded
him in the pastorate.
This township was organized by act of legislature
approved March 11, 1837, to include the northw^est
one-quarter of the county. Three other townships
have since been taken from this territory.
Daniel Barber and E. H. Barber, I think not
named above, were early and very prominent resi-
dents here. In April, 1837, a special election was
held to fill a vacancy in the legislature caused by
the death of Ezra Convis. Twelve votes w^ere cast,
all for Sands McCamly. In 1844, there were re-
corded fifty-nine resident taxpayers.
The assessor's books show the following products
of the town in 1846 : 419 tons of hay, 395 bushels of
rye, 1884 bushels of wheat, 371 bushels of barley,
5100 pounds of beef, 48,125 pounds of pork, 7,350
pounds of butter, 1,330 pounds of cheese, 12,430
pounds of maple sugar, 1,463 pounds of wool, 140
pounds of flax, 1,383 bushels of oats, 4,353 of corn,
59 of buckwheat, 3,993 of potatoes.
The first hotel keeper was Wells R. Martin. The
following were the early supervisors in order : W. J.
Squier, E. H. Barber, Henry Robinson, Wells R.
Martin, Henry Robinson, W. U. Benedict, Willard
Davis, W. S. Frink, Roger Griswold, Artemas
Smith, R. W. Griswold, Willard Davis, Wells R.
Martin.
The proudest product of Vermontville, and per-
VERMONTVILLE TOWNSHIP. 55
liaps of the entire county, is tlie Hon. Ed. W. Bar-
ber, reared in Vermontville from liis eleventh year
to early manhood when he became clerk of our State
Legislature, then of United States Congress for a
term of years and later assistant postmaster gen-
eral during the Grant administration and still
later editor of the Jackson Patroit, when his edi-
torials for their pungency and erudition became
famed through many States. He has twice given
most able and eloquent orations at our annual
pioneer meetings. Now in his ninety-sixth year he
resides in Florida but writes with the vigor of early
manhood. I append the following item from his
pen:
"In October, 1839, when my father, E. H. Barber,
moved in with his wife, four boys, an ox team, wagon
and cow, we left Bellevue before the sun was up,
and stopped long enough in the woods to eat a
lunch, feed the oxen and extract some milk from
the brindle cow, and about nine o'clock in the eve-
ning arrived in Vermontville in a rain storm which
set in at the close of the day. S. B. Gates owned
the first log house and he came out with an old
fashioned tin lantern and a tallow dip to light and
guide us to our destination a mile further on. For
a mile or two north of Bellevue the road had been
chopped out four rods wide, and also for half a
mile or so south of Vermontville. The rest of the
way the track was through the woods and some-
times hard to find on account of the fallen leaves.
56 PIONEER HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
But we made a mile an liour that last one of eight
days from Detroit and three weeks from Benson,
Vermont, and reached our stumpy Canaan at last. ' '
SUNFIELD TOWNSHIP
By act of the legislature approved February 16,
1842, the Township of Sunfield was separated from
its parent township, Vermontville, organized and
given its present name and the first township meet-
ing was ordered to be held at the house of Ezra E.
Peck, in said township. There were no land entries
in this township previous to 1836, but in that year
of the great stampede for the wilds of Michigan,
and particularly to Eaton County, the records show
eighty-six entries here, doubtless many of them by
speculators who never settled here.
Sunfield primarily was, is and ever must remain,
an agricultural township. It had not the water
power, the beds of limestone, the ashery and salera-
tus manufactory that created a village at Bellevue
nor the rapids that gave water power and village
sites to Spicerville, Eaton Rapids and Delta. It
had not the attractive prairie that called Charlotte,
nor the burr-oak plains that enabled a pioneer to
plant sixty acres of wheat his first season. The
growth of Sunfield was slower. The settlers here
had not that ceaseless taste for frolic and horse-play
that characterized Bellevue, nor the religious en-
thusiasm of Vermontville. They were sturdy axe
men who understood also the use of the rifle and
shotgun. Their story is quickly told. Some of
57
58 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
tliem devoted much time to hunting but they have
not handed down to us the marvelous stories of bear
and wolf hunts and this, perhaps, because they w^ere
so common as to awaken but little comment.
The first settler in the town was S. S. Hoyt who
settled in summer of 1836. His daughter Elizabeth
was the first child of white parents, but she was
born in Vermontville, her mother having gone there
for a short time as no neighbors were nearer. The
first male children born here w^ere John Nead, Jr.,
and John Wells, son of Wm. A. Wells. Peter Kinne
was, perhaps, the second settler. Both he and his
wife died within two years thereafter.
The third settler was Abram Chatfield. He came
in by way of Jackson, Marshall, Bellevue and Ver-
montville, and passed but one shanty between these
last named villages. This was unoccupied but
known as the half-way house. This being in the
north part of the county, others came in by way of
Ionia. A land office was now established there and
there they must go to purchase land.
Edward 0. Smith came to Sunfield in May, 1838.
His wife was timid and very greatly frightened
when one day she saw 260 Pottawattomie Indians
pass by on their way to reservations beyond the
Mississippi. Their dress was different from that of
the Ottawas with which she was now familiar. The
latter wore white or gray blankets but this passing
army wore red blankets and leggins furnished by
the British.
SUNFIELD TOWNSHIP. 59
Daniel Barnum and his four sons, Daniel, Henry,
Willis and Lewis, and his son-in-law, Avery Pool,
were early settlers in the east part of the town.
Thos. Prindle came in the fall of 1840, but said,
even at that time, "It took all the town to raise a
shanty ; they couldn 't put up a decent log house for
their lives."
James Young moved into Sunfield in 1841.
Joseph Cupp and several of his friends settled
here late in 1837. Mrs. Cupp was very much afraid
of the Indians who, she said, would come to the
house when she was alone, wanting food, ''would
give the Indian war whoop and scare a body to
death." She remembered the tales she had heard
of early Indian massacres. The Indians here be-
longed to a band of old Chief Swaba, and were en-
camped on the shore of the lake that bears his name.
On one occasion they had obtained liquor and, ac-
cording to custom, all were drunk including Swaba,
who was very ill tempered when in liquor. Daniel
Hagar visited the camp at this unfortunate time.
Swaba twisted him and choked him in a frenzy of
delight until he learned who was his victim when he
was immediately released but considerably bruised.
After frightening the wife of some pioneer nearly
out of her senses he would go away and relate his
exploit in great glee, saying, "white squaw plenty
'fraid."
The squaws made baskets, moccasins, and rush
carpets which they would exchange with the settlers
60 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
for provisions. The Indians trapped mucli and
every spring they went to Shimnicon to plant corn.
There was no milling nearer than Bellevue, twenty
miles away, and often the early settlers had naught
to grind. On one occasion several families had been
entirely out of provisions for two days and children
were crying with hunger when James Hager re-
turned from Plymouth with a load of provisions
which he had doubtless purchased from a sale of
furs. He was much given to hunting and trapping.
May 7, 1842, the board of school inspectors, G. W.
Andrews, E. E. Peck, and J. R. Wells, organized the
first school district and Mrs. George Andrews taught
the first school in her own house. A small log
shanty was built for the first schoolhouse and was
used until 1851 when a framed schoolhouse was
built.
The first preaching in this town by a preacher of
any denomination was by Rev. W. U. Benedict who
continued to preach here once in four weeks nearly
as long as he lived. Not a professor of religion re-
sided in the township when he began to preach here.
The Methodists have held meetings there since
about 1860.
Records show that the resident taxpayers in 1844
were as follows: E. 0. Smith, Clesson Smith, S. N.
Billings, 0. M. Wells, Joseph Cupp, J. D. Wickham,
S. Hager, W. A. Wells, Abram Chatfield, Thomas
Prindle, Avery Pool, Willis Barnum, Daniel Bar-
num, James Young, C. Vanhoutten, S. S. Hoyt, J. R.
SUNFIELD TOWNSHIP. 61
Wells, G. W. Andrews, H. W. Green, Lewis Barnum,
Sr., and Jr., and John Nead.
At the first election in 1842, thirteen votes were
cast and John Nead was elected supervisor. His
successors have been: George "W. Andrews, John
Nead, Zenas Hutchinson, David Griffin, Zenas
Hutchinson, G. W. Andrews and John Dow, from
1851 to 1878.
Mr. Dow is the Nestor of supervisors. He was
first supervisor of Chester before the separation of
townships. His farm lies on both sides of the road,
the east township line of Sunfield. His first house
was in Roxand and he was supervisor of that town-
ship from 1845 to 1850. He then built his house
across the road in Sunfield and at once became
supervisor there as seen above.
He was a native of Bridgewater, New Jersey, and
came here in 1837, purchasing his land from the
government. He was the first in the locality, having
no neighbors within several miles.
I chance to know of two pioneers of Eaton County
who made spectacular entrance into Michigan a few
years before settling here. The first is that of Linus
Potter, the father of the late Senator George N.
Potter and his brothers. He reached Detroit when
it was but a village in the wilderness; thence he
walked thirty miles through the forest to establish a
future home. His wife walked beside him while he
carried their two little children, one upon his back
and one in arms. They walked as far as seemed
62 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
prudent into the wood where he left them sitting
upon a log while he returned to take up the large
bundle containing all their earthly goods. This he
carried as far as the family or beyond, then he
returned for them. Thus he walked the whole thirty
miles three times over bearing his alternate burdens.
He later came to Eaton County cutting his road
through miles of unbroken forest and settling where
Potterville now is. His story belongs in the history
of Benton where it is more fully told.
The other man of unusual experience was Peter
M. Kent, one of the earliest pioneers of Oneida and
later a most prominent citizen of Portland and then
of Grand Ledge. His story belongs to Oneida, but
that chapter is already prolix while this is brief;
furthermore his oldest son later became a pioneer of
Sunfield and here the grandsons were reared. This
furnishes excuse, if not good reason, for giving his
story here. Late in life he wrote an extended auto-
biography, remarkable alike in his unusual adven-
tures and his marvelous memory in recalling them.
From this "sketch," as he termed it, I am permitted
to cull the foUoAving facts.
He was born in Pennsylvania in 1810, of Dutch
parentage but very poor. At fifteen years of age he
went for himself, working for a farmer at $7.00 a
month for six months, losing but two days and sav-
ing his earnings. Later he worked for $10.00 a
month and incidentally picked up the carpenter's
trade. Then he worked three years at nominal wage
TRYING TRAILS. 63
and learned the millwright's trade. When twenty-
one years old he had bought twenty-four acres of
land and upon it had established his parents and
their small children of whom he was thenceforth the
main support.
He next started with a companion of like aspira-
tions to traverse, on foot, the whole of western New
York seeking desirable location for future life. The
details are too prolix for these pages although very
interesting. He finally bought eighty acres of land
at $3.00 an acre. Here he settled his parents who
made some improvements when he sold the land for
$1,280, or $16.00 an acre. This was a princely sum
to start pioneer life in Michigan. He met, in New
York State, James and Almeron Newman, who told
him they had purchased a mill site at the mouth of
the Lookinggiass River, and they engaged him to
construct their mills. They took his trunk and tool-
chest, to ship with their goods by water, up the lakes
and then the Grand Eiver, while Kent followed on
foot. He took boat from Cleveland to Toledo and
thence on foot again.
His description of Michigan cities as he found
them in 1836 is most interesting. He passed
''through where Hudson now is" and reached
Adrian "which then consisted of a tavern and one
store." He then walked to Jonesville, "a little
huddle", and thence to Coldwater "which was but
a few houses about a mile from where the beautiful
city of that name now is." Here he was offered
64 PIONEER HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
two hundred forty acres, as choice looking land as he
ever saw, for $1,000. He offered $950 but failed to
get it. It is now within the city corporation.
From there he walked to Marshall, ' ' one store and
a tavern." Here he had a supper so wretched that
the landlord took no pay (after controversy) and
offered a drink if he would say nothing.
Here he enquired the way to the mouth of the
Lookinggiass. (Portland had as yet no name.)
Some advised that he go to White Pigeon thence
via. Yankee Springs to Grand Eapids and up the
river. Others said no, go to Bellevue and take the
Clinton trail to Grand Eapids. Kent could believe
neither of them. He knew the Newmans had gone
through with two yoke of oxen and he did not think
they had gone such a roundabout way. Another
told him to return to Jackson and take the old Indian
trail, fifty miles through the forest to Scotts Tavern
on the Lookinggiass. This he did and found Jack-
son, * ' a small tavern, a store and two groceries, ' ' but
he had much difficulty in learning of any trail
through the north woods. One man knew of it — had
been over it and said it ended just behind the tavern.
He was told to follow it to "Tanner's who would
tell him all about it." Here he met a young man
who thought he wanted to go through with him to
Newman's, to get a steady job of work, to earn forty
acres of land. It was now forty miles without a
house or guide post, save the well worn Indian
trail, deeped by centuries of travel. They followed
TRYING TEAILS. 65
but a few miles when the young man, disheartened,
turned back. Kent was in no sense a woodsman
and was too timid to venture alone. He went back
to Davis and then hired a large powerful man named
Turner to go through with him for "twenty shill-
ings." Mrs. Davis sold them bread and a chunk of
butter for their dinner as by sharp travel they could
make it in a day. But Turner proved very hea\'7
of foot. They slept in the woods when little more
than half through, ie., Turner slept, but mosquitoes
kept Kent awake until dawn at 3:00 when they
started on.
Their instructions were to follow the great trail
to its end at the Cedar River near where Okemos
now is and where there was then a deserted Indian
village. Then follow the river down to a crossing
and up the further bank to the Indian burying
ground; then with their compass, steer directly
north until they intercepted another trail leading to
the Lookingglass. At the Cedar River, Turner
balked and nearly fought to return but finally re-
luctantly followed on very slowly. It was a hot day
and the only water they found was a pond in which
they brushed the wigglers away and dipping their
bread therein, ate it to quench thirst. Toward night,
as a rain storm approached, they came to the Look-
ingglass and an Indian ferried them across.
''He pointed us the way to Scotts which was not
very far down the river. Here we stayed over
night with thirty others, land lookers, in his little
66 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
block tavern. Here we found two men freighting
down the river to Lyons. Five of us engaged
passage with them to the mouth of the Lookingglass
at fifty cents each. We constructed a rude raft to
help support the frail boat. In this crazy contrap-
tion with much bailing we succeeded in reaching
very near the mouth at Portland, but here the raft
parted, the boat upset. The passengers, badly
scared, shouted murder, but finally, clinging to wil-
lows by the shore, all lives were saved but the freight
was lost." Their lusty calls brought the Newmans
to their rescue. They were housed and dried and
this perilous journey ended. Thus Peter Kent had
walked the entire distance from Philadelphia to
Grand Eapids except the space between Buffalo and
Detroit. Much of this he walked over several times.
Quoting Kent:
*'Here my Michigan labor should begin but my
tool chest shipped by water had not arrived. No
work could be done without tools. We waited, then
heard Newman's goods had been seen on the dock in
Chicago. We asked a man going there to see that
they were reshipped to Grand Rapids at once. Work
must be begun soon or not at all that season. We
went to Grand Rapids to search for the goods and
there found my tool chest which we reshipped to
Lyons. We then returned on foot to Lyons, opened
the chest and taking broad-axe, square and chalk-
line walked to Portland and began work on the mill
July 20, 1836, and it was raised on September 1st."
TRYING TRAILS. 67
Almeron Newman and Kent then went to Detroit
to select fixtures for a grist mill, of small run of
stone, to add to the sawmill. Mr. Kent went on to
York State on business but returned early in October
to Detroit and at Farmington he met John and
Greorge Strange and began an acquaintance which
continued while they lived. They walked together
from Farmington to Scott's and beyond to S. B.
Groger's in Eagle. They waded sloughs, twenty
rods across and waist deep in water covered with a
thin crust of ice. They became lost in the woods
and sat upon the roots of trees all night.
Groger was a professional land looker. He told
them the best land in Michigan was just south across
the river in Eaton County. And the next day he
piloted a party of half a dozen over there, crossing
at the "old ford" a mile below the ledges. Much
land had been taken by speculators but he knew of a
few choice tracts still open. He led them a zigzag
course, following blazed trees of the government
survey. He showed them sections 7 and 18, then
went east to the center line and said if any would
return that night it was time to start. They divided
and some returned but my father, my uncle George
Strange and Kent said they would look further. At
the quarter post on the west side of section 34, night
overtook them. Without blankets they could scarce-
ly lie down in the light snow. They sat upon the
roots of trees, told stories or walked about to keep
warm. Speculators had been before them but of
68 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
those who became settlers it is believed these were
the first who ever set foot in Oneida. There was
not a habitation nor roadway within ten miles of the
land they selected.
The next morning (early in October, 1836) they
went around section 34 and then determined their
choice. Uncle George took the northwest quarter of
section 7 and w^ith my father they bought the south
one-half of section 18 and the whole of section 34.
Most of this section is still owned by the third gen-
erations of Stranges being one of the very few
tracts still in the family of the first purchaser.
Mr. Kent chose the one-half of section 27 and
one-half of 28 thus giving him a square mile. They
then returned to the 'old ford' reaching there about
11 A. M., after w^ading a slough waist deep and
thinly encrusted with ice. Here they found Mr.
Groger's son w^ho met them with fresh biscuits, and
in a canoe ferried them over. They started at once
for the U. S. land office at Ionia to secure their
land. They learned at Portland that the office was
closed for a time. They all went to work for New^-
man until the office opened and soon after returned.
Mr. Kent worked most of the w^inter on Newman's
mill and at the same time hired a man to chop fifty
acres on the northeast corner of his land in Oneida.
The next summer he went east and brought his
father's family to Portland but in March, 1838, he
placed them in a log house built upon this land.
This he called home but he continued to spend much
TKYING TRAILS. 69
time building mills, one at Stony Creek, ten miles
below Portland, another at Lloyd's, another in
Eagle and one at Wacousta. He geared a mill for
Erastus IngersoU in Delta and then helped Newman
to build a modern large grist mill and Kent bought
a half interest in it and ran it twelve years when
again he removed to his farm in Oneida. In 1852,
after being on the farm two years he, with his
brother Francis, and Abram Hixson bought out the
Grand Ledge milling properties but Peter remained
upon his farm until 1861 when, having built a large
house in Grand Ledge, he removed his family there,
and spent the remainder of a serene old age, a fore-
most citizen, respected and esteemed by all.
DELTA TOWNSHIP
Following the townships in their order of settle-
ment we again skip across the county from the
extreme northwest to extreme northeast corner,
Delta.
The settlement of this township presents a more
romantic history than any other. A greater variety
of pioneer experiences, perhaps more privations
and hardships, more wanderings in the wilderness,
more of loneliness and again more dense crowding
into scarcely habitable homes.
Bellevue had one entrance pathway followed by
all, and this mainly through *'oak openings" where
a first trail was easily formed. Vermontville, with
its thrilling experiences, was settled by a colony
where many mutual friends came closely in together.
Delta was entered by four different routes, each
through dense woods and interminable swamps ; the
first incomer over each cutting a path from ten to
forty miles which was so obscured before others fol-
lowed it that it was difficult or impossible to trace,
and these followers were often lost over night and
sometimes for several days.
Thirty-six purchases of government land are re-
corded in 1836 (doubtless most of them by specu-
lators who never settled here) and only one pur-
chase preceding this and that by the first settler,
70
DELTA TOWNSHIP, 71
Erastus Ingersoll, in 1835. He purchased eight
hundred acres lying upon both sides of Grand River,
and this with most lofty expectations and aspira-
tions. He was the father of six sons, all well known
afterwards throughout this and adjoining counties.
The oldest son, Erastus S. Ingersoll, perhaps the
best known of them all, was elected the first town-
ship supervisor, was for very many years Sunday
school superintendent and later State agent or
superintendent of Sunday schools. He wrote an
extended account of the early settlement of this
township from which I make many extracts as
follows :
'*In the spring of 1836, Mr. Ingersoll employed
Anthony Niles and Heman Thomas, residing in
Eagle, to build a log cabin on his newly purchased
lands and upon the north side of the river. In the
month of August or September, of this year, Mr.
Ingersoll, in company with Clinton Burnet (later of
Windsor, Eaton County) and a Mr. Avery, went
onto this land with his family, doubtless the first
settler in this quarter of the county. They left
Farmington, Oakland County, following the Grand
River turnpike to Howell, thence he turned north-
ward to the Looking-glass River which they fol-
lowed to the present site of DeWitt. From this
point he cut his way southwesterly, without other
guide than his pocket compass, to his log cabin al-
ready erected, a distance of ten or more miles. The
labor and trial of such a task is inconceivable at the
72 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
present day. His next task was to dam the Grand
River and begin the task of building a sawmill. This
mill was only partially finished when on the last
day of December, 1836, the first board was sawed
but the 'gigging back' was only accomplished by
hand with the aid of handspikes. Addison Hayden
was head mechanic in building the mill but the
freshet of the following spring swept away the frail
dam. ' '
The next settlers after Mr. Ingersoll were a Mr.
Lewis and his son-in-law^, Ezra Billings. They came
in from the south cutting their road from Eaton
Rapids, some twenty miles, and enduring such hard-
ships by the way that Mrs. Lewis died soon after
their arrival. This was before the sa"WTnill had
cut its first board and according to pioneer custom
the wagon-box in which she had arrived, was cut up
to make a coffin in which she was buried. Thus an-
other succumbed to the hardships unendurable save
by the strongest.
Erastus S. Ingersoll, the writer of these notes,
was the next to arrive February 27, 1837. He came
with his family from Farmington via. Shiawassee
and DeWitt with sleigh and horses. ' ' Supplies were
transported by ox-team from Detroit. Provisions
ruled very high, pork being $40 and flour $14 a bar-
rel. We were without vegetables until the follow-
ing spring. A Mr. Butterfield came down the river
in the early spring with a boat laden with much
needed potatoes. My father purchased both the
DELTA TOWNSHIP. (6
cargo and the vessel, paying $40 for the boat and
$2 a bushel for potatoes, seventy bushels in all.
''About the first of June, 1837, my father returned
with his brother, the Rev. E. P. Ingersoll and Dr.
Jennings of Oberlin and others from Ohio and Mass-
achusetts. They came through from Howell bring-
ing with them two yoke of oxen and four cows.
They cut their own roads through the dense forest
this entire forty miles, built bridges, dug down
hillsides, removed obstructions and encountered
many trying delays. On Saturday night they en-
camped on the banks of Cedar River and observed
the Sabbath as a day of rest and religious worship.
On our arrival Mr. Ingersoll's family was increased
to eighteen members.
''Two weeks later Thomas Chadwick arrived ac-
companied by other Ingersolls with two yoke of oxen
and a span of horses, having followed the new trail
from Howell. Imagine the difficulties of construct-
ing this road when you read the details of this next
trip over it. On the first day they came to an open
marsh and testing the strength of its turf thought
it sufficient to venture upon with the horse team.
l¥hen half way over the horses broke through and
mired. When released from the wagon they man-
aged to get across. After selecting a new path the
oxen were tried with the same result. Both wagons
were now stranded or mired to their axles in the
mud. Mrs. Chadwick, a very stout old lady, was
left alone in one wag-on and now shouting for assist-
74 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
ance. Her stalwart son managed after a time to
carry her safe to land upon liis back. They next
cut several long poles and connected them with
ropes and chains and attached them to a wagon
tongTie. The teams now having firm footing brought
the wagons, one at a time, safely to the shore, after
they had lightened the wagons by carrying upon
their backs much of the loads. The next day one of
their horses gave out and much of the lading was
left in the forest. We then sent one of our number
on ahead to return with provisions. He brought
back pork and beans. With fresh heart we went
forward and reached Delta Mills the third day from
Howell. Wondrous was the capacity of a small log
house in those pioneer days. This one now shel-
tered twenty-six persons besides occasional land
lookers who perforce halted here.
"About the 20th of March Mr. Compton and Mr.
Cronkite, future settlers in Eagle, arrived with
their families having made the trip from Eaton Rap-
ids upon the ice. The ice was now melting rapidly
and was free from our shore. They shouted lustily
for assistance and called us from our supper table.
We managed with poles to construct a bridge to the
ice and they were landed safely.
''A few days later than this, in April, we heard a
loud call early in the morning from the south side
of the river. A boat was sent across and soon re-
turned with four young men who had been out all
night without food, fuel, fire or covering, through-
DELTA TOWNSHIP. 75
out a violent storm and depth of snow. So thor-
oughly drenched were they that water was freely
wrung from their every garment.
''These calls were frequent but each awakened
new and deeper interest. A few mornings later a
loud halloo was heard at our very door. Rushing
out and surrounding a lad on horse back too closely,
as he thought, he drew a pistol and shouted, 'Stand
back! I am in Uncle Sam's employ.' And so it
proved. A tiny mail bag was strapped to the rear
of his saddle. We learned from him that a mail
route was established from Jacksonburg (afterward
the city of Jackson) to Ionia. Roads proving im-
passable the route was soon discontinued. ' '
Another party coming in from Eaton Rapids
were lost in the "Old Maid's Swamp" for several
days under really terrifying conditions.
Some of the founders of Delta were as religiously
zealous and as intellectually asjDiring as the found-
ers of Vermontville but less successful in their enter-
prise. Erastus Ingersoll bought this large tract of
land and his brother, Rev. E. P. Ingersoll, came on
with the purpose of founding here a college planned
after the model of Oberlin. In fact the Rev. J. J.
Shipherd, the founder of Oberlin and who after-
ward founded Olivet, came with these two brothers
in 1835, and assisted in selecting the land. The two
reverends returned to New England to obtain sub-
scriptions with very gratifying results — so much
so that preparations were made and foundation
76 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
laid for a large college building. The famed panic
of 1837- '38 brought disaster to this with many an-
other laudable enterprise. Subscriptions could not
be collected. The college was blighted and their
hopes nearly blasted but Rev. E. P. Ingersoll did
return here and taught an advanced school for a
time but, despairing of success, ''abandoned the
Avoods of Delta for some more congenial field."
Mr. E. S. Ingersoll closes his long essay with
' ' fourteen points ' ' :
The first settler, Erastus Ingersoll. The first
dwelling, his log cabin.
The first improvements, his dam and sawmill.
The first hotel, by E. S. Ingersoll.
The first postmaster, E. S. Ingersoll.
The first election, in fall of 1838.
The first minister of the gospel, Rev. E. P. Inger-
soll.
The first child born (a girl), 1838.
The first church organized in 1851. The first per-
manent pastor, Rev. Wm. P. Esler.
The first schoolhouse, built in 1839. The first
schoolteacher, Lydia Ingersoll.
The first public school teacher, Miss Sally Chad-
wick.
During the summer of 1837, a grist mill, a framed
barn, and two framed houses were built, the latter
belonging to E. S. Ingersoll and to A. Hayden.
The first marriage occurred in 1838, Addison Hay-
den and Mary Chadwick. An interesting incident
DELTA TOWNSHIP. 77
is connected with this marriage. A justice of the
peace was sent for to perform the ceremony. His
wife said he could not go as he had no fit clothes.
His sons came to his relief. One furnished a coat,
another a vest, still another the pants, but the fin-
ishing touch was given when another, the family
dude, furnished a plug hat. This was not the last
nor greatest of their perplexities. It chanced that
the justice was not a praying man and here was an
indispensible part of the ceremony unprovided for.
Mr. E. S. Ingersoll was engaged to supply this part
of the ceremony so the matrimonial knot was duly
tied and ' ' they lived happily ever after. ' '
On June 11, 1841, a village plat was laid out ex-
tending from the river to the turnpike. This was
given the aspiring name of Grand River City but
the name failed of general adoption. It remained
"Delta Mills" for many years. In a very early
day Whitney Jones established a store here after
purchasing a considerable portion of the "plat."
Since he became supervisor here and a prominent
man in the county and later well known throughout
the State it is perhaps well to pause here and recite
something of his varied early career. In the sum-
mer of 1839, he came to Detroit from New York
State with a stock of goods which he took in trade
at Jamestown. In August, 1839, he took his stock
of goods to Marshall, but in March, 1842, he trans-
ported his stock to Eaton Rapids. Here he built
two boats measuring twelve by sixteen feet and
{Q PIONEER HISTORY OF EATOE" C0UN1:Y.
floated his goods to Delta Mills where he opened
the first store. His second stock was boated all the
way from Jackson. He remained here until 1845,
when he removed to Detroit but after the capital
was located in Lansing, 1847, he came to that place
where he remained.
The first settler on the south side of the river
was Genet Brown who came via Jacksonburg (now
Jackson) and Eaton Rapids, stopping in Windsor at
the shanties of Mr. Towslee and John D. Skinner.
Rev. E. P. Ingersoll was an old acquaintance of Mr.
Brown and at his house he made headquarters while
exploring and building a shanty. Brown had al-
ways worked in a factory and had little knowledge
of farming or of forests. He had many amusing
and trying experiences. He finally found the ''half
burned log heap" left by the surveyors ten years
before at the exact center of the township and a
half mile beyond his ow^n land. Here he laid the
foundation of a ten by fourteen cabin. Then with
the aid of six men who came from the ' ' Mills ' ' with
a yoke of oxen, a sled, and five slabs, the cabin was
raised and covered with basswood troughs and the
slabs, and so made habitable ; but what a change for
Brown, from a city to the loneliness of this vast wild-
erness with only wild men and wild animals to
break the monotony of unaccustomed toil.
On the day of the raising the highway commis-
sioner laid the first roadway in the township from
the Mills to Brown's shanty. Here after a time he
DELTA TOWNSHIP. 79
was joined by John Reed who came through from
Eaton Rapids with an ox team and many trying ex-
periences. By way of a private sleeping room, a
box was emptied and placed in the cabin for his per-
sonal use. Brown had many experiences in his wild-
wood home but not nearly so frightful as he imag-
ined. Chased home by a hungry pack of wolves, he
gave his wife a terrible fright by falling full length
upon the floor. Upon examining the tracks the next
morning he felt assured that ''forty such Bro^vns
as I could not have made a meal for such an awful
pack. ' '
Thomas Parsons was an early settler in the south-
east corner of the township. He had a son, not of
the brightest. When gathering sap with two buckets
he became lost and it was said he traveled forty
miles carrying those buckets slung to a yoke upon
his shoulders and searching for his home.
Allowing for reasonable exaggeration the pion-
eers of Delta certainly left some interesting stories.
Delta had been a part of Oneida until February
16, 1842, when by act of legislature it was created
into a separate township and ' ' the first election shall
be at the schoolhouse near Ingersoll's mill." The
election resulted as follows: For Supervisor, E. S.
Ingersoll; Clerk, Alexander Ingersoll; Treasurer,
0. B. Ingersoll ; Justices, S. Wm. Lee, Samuel Nixon,
Remember Baker.
Supervisors later were: Whitney Jones, S. B.
80 PIONEEK HISTOKY OF EATON COUNTY.
Dayton, A. Hayden, J. T. Dorrel, Chas. Burr,
Chamicey Goodrich, Charles Bull.
Among early experiences one man relates that his
wife went at one time nineteen days without seeing
a human being except two squaws. Again at one
time he broke his axe and to obtain another he had
to walk twenty miles and for it he paid three pairs
of socks which his wife had knitted in the winter
evenings.
The following is the list of resident taxpayers
in 1844: A. Baker, R. Baker, Thos. Robbins, Wm.
Lee, E. S. Ingersoll, Alex. Ingersoll, D. S. Ingersoll,
S. B. Dayton, Whitney Jones, P. Phillips, D. Phil-
lips, Emerson Frost, W. J. Halsey, John Reed, 0.
Fairbanks, D. R. Carpenter, Thomas Parsons, Ed.
Moore, John Nixon, Samuel Nixon, N. Carrier, A.
H. Hayden, Daniel Chadwick, Ansel Mascho, Seers
Mascho, Charles Mascho.
I am told that Rev. W. H. Carpenter was the first
male child born in Delta.
"When riding past the broad acres, the fertile
fields, the immense barns, the elegant homes of to-
day it is difficult to ijnagine the privations of the
pioneers upon these same acres eighty years ago.
EATON RAPIDS TOWNSHIP
Eaton County with two others was at a very early
day included in the Township of Greene. Later
the whole of Eaton County was included in the
Township of Bellevue. Next the southeast quarter
of the county was organized into the Township of
Eaton but by act of legislature approved February
16, 1842, the present Township of Eaton Rapids
was organized and ''the first township meeting shall
be held at the house of H. Hamlin. ' '
The government records show seven purchases
of land within this township in 1835, and forty-six
in 1836. Few of these however became actual set-
tlers here. Johnson Montgomery is credited with
settling here in September, 1836, as he came at that
time and began improvements upon his land which
continued unremittingly, but for several months he
made his home with his brother John (the first
settler in Hamlin) who lived just across the road
from his land; thus he was not legally a resident
i^pon his land.
The first actual resident within the limits of the
present township w^as John E. Clark, locating upon
section 20 on February 11, 1837. From a brief
autobiography of Johnson Montgomery, now in my
possession, I learn that he was of Scotch-Irish
descent and that his parents came to this country
the year before he was born, 1806, and when his
81
82 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
brother John was but one year old. He lived with
his parents at different places in New York until
twenty-one years old, married when twenty-three,
and before 1836, when they started for Michigan,
three children were born to them. Quoting directly
from his own writing:
*'We started with two yoke of oxen bringing
our family and all our household goods in one
wagon. At Buffalo we went on board of steamer to
Detroit. But after leaving that place it was almost
impossible to proceed through the interminable mud.
In about five days we arrived at Dexter having en-
countered many difficulties. Here we were joined
by my brother Robert. After leaving Dexter we
found it very difficult to proceed, fording streams
and wading mire-holes. While fording Portage
River the wagon became fastened in the mire.
Brother Robert went two miles to get a team to help
draw the wagon out of the mire. While he was
gone I waded to my waist in mud and water and
carried my wife and children and some of our goods
to dry land. When the team arrived we fastened
one end of a long pole to the wagon tongue and
hauled it out of the mire. As we proceeded west we
found it still more difficult to proceed. We found
it would be necessary to camp out one night. We
accordingly procured a sufficient quantity of pro-
visions for such an event but with no shelter save
the canopy of heaven.
''We were obliged to turn the cattle loose at night
Eatcon rapids township. ©3
to feed, and great was our disappointment in the
morning to find our oxen were missing. Following
their tracks I immediately started to find tliem,
which I did after traveling as fast as possible four-
teen miles. Two hours before sunset I returned
with them to the wagon. Brother John had heard
we were coming, and not far away, and during my
search for the cattle he had been to the camping
place and had very kindly taken my family and a
portion of my goods and carried them to his house.
I arrived there about eleven o 'clock the same night.
We soon moved into a shanty just vacated by a Mr.
Toles where we were obliged to hang up blankets
instead of doors and in place of window glass we
used greased paper to let in a little light.
''We remained here until nearly spring time, 1837,
before any boards could be procured to add to our
comfort. We felt this to be quite a severe introduc-
tion to pioneer life, still we were not disheartened.
As soon as we moved into the shanty I was obliged
to return to Dexter to purchase provisions which
were difficult to obtain at any price. Pork was $44
a barrel and flour $14. Contrast this with the prices
two years later when we had produce to sell. Wheat
was 44 cents a bushel but no cash, corn twelve and
one-half cents and pork one and one-half cents a
pound. (These prices were partly due to scarcity
and then abundance but largely to the fact that very
cheap money was abundant in 1836, but after the
84 PIONEEK HISTOKY OP EATON COUNTY.
panic of 1837 and '38 money was practically un-
known. )
"We could generally tell how long a man had
been in the State. The second year he was obliged
to wear his best coat every day; the third year he
had to cut off the coat tails to mend the sleeves. A
few of us built a shanty and supported a school but
it was four or five years before a district was or-
ganized and a schoolhouse built."
Mr. Montgomery's first wife died in June, 1863,
having borne him nine children, some of them since
highly honored by the State and the Nation. He
married a second wife, Mrs. Nancy Kingman, in
May, 1867. He died sixteen years later when sev-
enty-seven years old.
John E. Clark, who was really the first settler,
(or the second as you may choose to count it), set-
tled in the west part of the town and found no road
near his land and no neighbor nearer than the Wall
settlement in Eaton. He relates that wild game was
very abundant and even bears a nuisance. Once
hearing a hog squeal he followed the sound and
found a large bear worrying the hog. As Clark ap-
proached the bear dropped the hog and turned upon
him. He retreated into a small tree and kicked the
bear's nose, then called to his hired man who came
and shot and wounded the bear. A few days later he
again heard a hog squeal. He took his gun, pursued
and shot and killed the bear. It proved to be the
same, large, old gray bear with a kicked nose.
EATON EAPIDS TOWNSHIP. 85
Simon Darling and his wife and three children
settled upon his land, section 12, near the northeast
corner of the township in November, 1837. He
wrote as follows :
"I had a good yoke of oxen and the first that
ever were driven over what was called the Lansing
road. The second and third days of our journey it
rained constantly and we were saturated. Streams
were greatly swollen. At Leslie a man told me the
best place to ford Whitney Creek. We prepared for
emergency. My wife climbed to the top of a chest
which was quite high and put the children in a wash-
tub on the extreme top of the load. The oxen swam
and I waded to the further shore and then pushed
onward. The next night but one we reached John
Montgomery's home, the seventh after leaving
Dexter. The next day we started down the river
and reached our land on Section 12 where our life of
toil, of sunshine and shadow commenced in good
earnest. My wife was in this woods six months be-
fore she saw a white woman. The Indians were set-
tled all around us but were quiet and sociable. The
wolves regaled us with their musical talent which
was extremely wonderful at times. By the way we
went, it was seven miles around to mill at Eaton
Rapids. About 4:00 o'clock A. M. I started and
would usually reach home by dark. In 1841 my wife
went east for three months taking two youngest
children and leaving two with me. I had my hands
full.
86 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
''One niglit I was awakened by Indians making a
terrible fuss. I dressed hastily and went out to
learn the cause. An Indian told me the soldiers
were after them to take them away off. General
Cass had made a treaty with the Indians who were
to remove beyond the Mississippi. When the time
came they refused to budge. Some ran away, some
went peaceably, others fought.
''In 1841, we put up a schoolhouse strictly in
keeping with our humble ways. It was built of logs
with a roof of troughs. A favorite pastime of the
children was chasing woodchucks from the excava-
tion of these same logs. We hired a teacher. Miss
Cornell, and paid her the munificent salary of one
dollar a week. Bears were quite plenty and w^e used
to tell the children to make a noise while going, to
frighten the bears away. It is needless to say the
injunction was never disregarded. Bears were
abundant. At one time going to the river with my
little boys we espied five of them quietly feeding
upon acorns. A neighbor named Grovenburg trap-
ped many of them with an immense trap weighing
eighty pounds. He was skilful setting this and
skilful in tracking a bear where he had dragged it
away as they sometimes dragged it many miles. I
once ran suddenly upon an immense bear. He
reared to meet me. I struck his nose with a heavy
club and yelled terrifically. We both ran in opposite
directions.
"Our life was not all hardship. We were a social
EATON RAPIDS TOWNSHIP. 0/
people and clung to each other in privation or
plenty. At the first I had no potatoes. Branch
and myself being at John Montgomery's he said we
might each have two bushels of potatoes if we could
carry them home. We eagerly accepted and carried
them a distance of six miles. They didn't seem
heavy, we were so glad to get them.
* ' Fabrics for clothing were sold at extremely high
prices. Men would buy buckskin of the Indians and
make them into breeches. They were very durable
but in some respects peculiar. A neighbor had a
pair but when soaked they stretched so as to impede
his progress. He cut them off. In the evening, sit-
ting before the fireplace they shrunk beyond ac-
count. His good wife made him take a pilgrimage to
the woods while she spliced them to a more respect-
able length.
''In 1849, we moved into our new framed house.
As we look back over our early life in the wilderness
we can perhaps claim as much sunshine as shadow
in the past."
B. F. Mills from Hartland, Vermont, settled in
Eaton Eapids August 12, 1837, when the village
contained but three shanties.
Willis Bush settled here in 1836, and Philip Gil-
man in 1838.
Henry A. Shaw, a native of Vermont, had taught
school and began the practice of law in Ohio. Be-
cause of failing health he was advised to get out of
doors and to go west. In the fall of 1842 he came to
OO PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
Eaton County with 850 sheep. These he sold in
vicinity of Eaton Rapids, Charlotte and Vermont-
ville. Previous to this there had not been 200 sheep
in Eaton and Barry Counties. He purchased lands
in Eaton Rapids and ever after looked upon this as
his home. Mr. Shaw was ever prominent in the
county and in 1855 he was sent to the legislature
where he at once took a prominent position. He
introduced and carried through many important
measures. In fact very few men have been more
useful in that body. He was again elected in 1857
and was then made speaker of the house. In 1865,
he was again elected. He also held many other
offices of trust and responsibility. He served with
distinction in the Civil War. He was always very
proud of the young lawyers he trained in his office
including 0. M. Barnes, I. M. Crane, M. V. Mont-
gomery, 0. F. Rice, and Anson Bronson.
The fertile soil of the plains and of the timbered
land together with the improved waterpower aided
in the rapid development of this town. In 1844,
there were eighty-nine resident taxpayers in the
township.
It seems the early records of election have been
lost or destroyed but since 1850 there have been
elected supervisors: James Gallery, W. W. Crane,
R. H. King, Rufus Hale, N. J. Seelye, D. B. Hale
and others. Some of these have been several times
elected. James Gallery was supervisor at intervals
for more than thirty years.
EATON KAPIDS CITY. 89
In 1875, nearly half a century ago, James Gallery
wrote an extended narrative, historical and auto-
biographical, from which I make free extracts as
follows :
''In 1836, my father and I, in New York State,
accepted Horace Greely's advice and moved west.
We first landed at Detroit, returned to Toledo and
thence to Adrian. For public land and a permanent
home we were advised to seek the Grand River
country. Arriving at Jacksonburg, as Jackson was
then called, we there arranged with a professional
land looker to secure for us a quarter section of
most desirable land, heavily timbered. Late the
next spring we received a duplicate for the land said
to be about two miles from Spicer's Mill. Father
and I started at once and, on the 17th of August,
1837, arrived at this place, now called Eaton Rapids.
The first blow had been struck that summer by
Spicer, Hamlin and Darling who had, the year be-
fore, built a sawmill at Spicerville.
' ' There were then but three buildings in the place.
The dam across Spring Brook was partially built.
The frame for the grist mill was up. There was not
a bridge across any stream here. The three fam-
ilies here at that time were of Amos Spicer, Ben-
jamin Knight and C. C. Darling. Samuel Hamlin
at that time lived at Spicerville.
''We saw our land one and one-half miles from
here, were well pleased and returned home. We
returned about November 1st and went into the
90 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
house of Lawrence Howard while we rolled up the
logs for a house of our own, twelve by twenty-four
feet and drew boards from Spicerville for doors and
floor. I built the door, also a chimney of stone,
sticks and clay, not artistic but our own, and filled
with average enjoyment. About this time Amos
Hamlin built here a slab blacksmith shop. John
Montgomery had raised one crop of wheat and from
him we purchased twenty-five bushels at $1.25.
There was no grist mill nearer than Jackson but in
January, 1838, our mill was started. February
seemed the coldest month I had ever known but
March warmed up beautifully and on its last day I
planted potatoes.
''During that summer the first store was built by
Benjamin Knight. The following winter I ran the
grist mill and boarded with Mr. Knight. About
this time the township was organized and a post-
office established.
"In 1840 I chopped, logged, split rails and all
kinds of pioneer labor but found it not to my taste.
I practiced milling for several years.
''In the summer of 1842, our village took its first
important stride toward greatness. A dam was
built across Grand Eiver and a race dug to com-
bine the water power of the two streams. The mill
was enlarged and improved. Two churches were
built although not completed until long after. This
year too I think Hamlin's Hotel was enlarged. We
soon had two or three asheries which did a large
EATON RAPIDS CITY, 91
business in black salts, pot and pearl ashes and
saleratus. This was a very important industry for
the farmers who were clearing land and had ashes
to sell. In 1844 a carding mill was erected and in
the summer of 1846 a foundry,
' ' In the spring of 1847, my health failing, I looked
for a more healthful occupation and thinking a
foundry would suit me I at once bought out Mr,
Spencer and soon after I took charge of the busi-
ness but without any experience in the business.
Signed, James Gallery,"
The postoffice was established at Eaton Rapids
about 1837-38, with Benjamin Knight as postmaster.
The original plat of the village was laid out July
19, 1838, by Amos Spicer, P, E, Spicer, C, Darling
and Samuel Hamlin, In 1839, the place was still
very small. The frame of the old ''Eaton Rapids
Hotel" was built that season. The "Morgan
House" was built in 1841-42 by Horace Hamlin. In
1849, by actual count the entire number of shingle
roof buildings in the village was thirty-six.
Oct, 14, 1859, the board of supervisors of Eaton
County incorporated the village as they were at
that time authorized to do, but by act of the legisla-
ture April 15, 1871, it was enlarged and reincorpor-
ated. In 1861 James Gallery was President and
J, Phillips, Clerk,
November 4, 1841, Henry Frink was hired to
teach the school four months at $23 a month, April
13, 1842, it was voted to have school five and one-
92 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
half months by a female teacher. Harriet Dixon
taught fifteen weeks at $1.50 a week. November 21,
1842, Bird Norton was hired to teach four months
at $15 a month. May 8, 1843, Eliza Goodspeed was
hired to teach five months at eleven shillings a week.
Other teachers followed as: A. N. DeWitt, L. S.
Noyes, Roxana Skinner, E. D. Noyes, S. P. Town,
Cynthia Taylor, and Daniel Palmer. In 1850, the
number of pupils had so increased that it was neces-
sary to occupy the Methodist and Congregational
churches.
September 26, 1853, it was voted to raise $2,500
to build a new school house. In 1870, it was voted
to raise $25,000 for the same purpose.
From a history written forty-two years ago I
copy an item which was thought to be of much con-
sequence at one time in the history of Eaton Eapids.
'' Within a period of ten years Eaton Rapids has
become famous on account of her mineral wells and
the wonderful cures which their waters have
wrought, and to judge by the testimonials volun-
teered, some of them were indeed wonderful. ' '
CHESTER TOWNSHIP
A man named Bell had by some means crept into
the territory of this township and built a shanty
near its center. This he had deserted and gone to
Vermontville in September, 1836, when Harvey and
Orton Williams following blazed trees of the Gov-
ernment survey, found their way from Bellevue via.
Kalamo, secured lands on sections 21 and 22, occu-
pied this shanty while they built a cabin upon their
land. They did not return to occupy this until June
of the following year. While in this shanty Robert
M. Wheaton stopped with them while looking land.
Mr. Wheaton became the first settler in Chester
as he came with his wife and accompanied by Asa
Fuller and his wife and settled upon his land Octo-
ber 20th, 1836. Willard Davis of Vermontville (or
at that time from Bellevue) assisted them in cutting
a road all the way from Bellevue, twenty miles. This
would seem, today, an impossible task but it was
only repeating what pioneers throughout Michigan
were doing at that time. Mr. Wheaton was the first
elected supervisor of Chester. He was also the first
sheriff of Eaton County and held many offices of
trust.
The Williams brothers returned the next June ac-
companied by their mother and two other brothers,
93
94 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
John and Isaac. Tliey became a prominent family
and each of the brothers held public office.
Jared Bouton accompanied by his two brothers,
Israel and Aaron, moved into this township in Feb-
ruary, 1837. They reached the Bell shanty but for
several weeks they were not able to cross the swollen
Thornapple Elver and it was not until April that
they went onto their farm.
In March, 1837, Benjamin E. Rich with his wife
and three children, a wagon, a yoke of oxen, five
sheep and a few hogs came from Adrian via. Jack-
son and the Clinton trail to the place he occupied
for many years on section 15. He had traded in
Adrian for this land and had never seen it. "When
he arrived he was $400 in debt and had but a two
dollar bill of an Adrian bank. He sent this to Belle-
vue to pay for recording his deed to find it was
good for nothing. Robert Wheaton happened to be
at Bellevue at the time and he told the register to
record the deed and if Mr. Rich did not pay for it
he would. The deed was recorded and, a month
later, the bank at Adrian having straightened its
affairs the same bill was again sent and this time it
was accepted.
Amasa L. Jordan settled in Chester about 1840
and his locality became known as Jordan's Corners.
Henry Cook settled on the east line of Chester
October 1st, 1837.
Asa W. Mitchell settled in Chester July 20, 1842.
His wife, Lydia, in writing her biography for the
CHESTER TOWNSHIP. 95
pioneer society, relates this incident: ''In 1842 we
started with an ox team to go forty-five miles to
quarterly meeting. Our little girl was taken sick
that day and we thought she must die; but fortu-
nately for us, we got lost in the woods and, in our
wanderings, found some blackberries which she ate.
These checked the disease and she recovered."
Eoswell R. Maxson stopped in Jackson County
in 1837, and the same year he purchased land in
Chester, intending to settle at once; his family
taken sick could not be moved. He lived alone in
the woods for three months. He forded Grand River
nine times coming from Jackson to this place. He
later moved his family into Chester. A small log
shanty was erected which had neither doors, win-
dows nor chimney and was roofed with troughs. To
get in, it was necessary to step over a log two feet
in diameter. The family lived in this through the
winter which was a severe one. Some years later
Mr. Maxson built one of the largest frame houses
in the county. When he moved in but one family
was living in this part of Chester, Leonard Boyer,
who settled there about 1837.
The township was organized by act of the legis-
lature approved March 21, 1839. It included what
is now both Chester and Roxand. The jury chosen
from this double township in May, 1839, was as fol-
lows: Henry Clark, Orrin Rowland, Henry A.
Moyer, John Dow, L. H. Boyer, Lemuele Cole, Wm.
Tunison, Harvey Williams, Jared Bouton, Aaron
96 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
Bouton, Asa Fuller, Zeb. Wlieaton, Benjamin E.
Eich.
At tlie first election, April 11, 1839, tliirty-two
votes were cast. E. M. Wheaton was elected super-
visor, and Harvey Williams, clerk. Mr. AVlieaton
at that time not being eligible a special election was
held in May and John Dow was elected. Mr. Whea-
ton succeeded him in 1843, followed by E. E. Max-
son, Hiram Hutchins and Martin. These seemed
to alternate and each was several times subse-
quently elected.
In the fall of 1839, a school district was formed
in the center of the township and a framed school-
house was erected. This was the first district or-
ganized and the first schoolhouse built but it was
numbered two and the one next east although or-
ganized a little later was numbered one.
This township had less of swamp than some of
the others and the music of wolves was not so com-
mon. Bears too were perhaps not so common as
elsewhere but doubtless the pioneers had much of
the same experiences as others but were less ye-
hement in relating and recording them. This histor-
ian saith not.
Among the early settlers in Chester was Martin
Beekman who settled in the extreme northwest
corner in 1837, but because of his remoteness he
should not be overlooked. His sons, William, Cal-
vin and Benjamin, later did him much honor.
The list of resident taxpayers in 1844 includes
CHESTEE TOWNSHIP. 97
thirty-nine names so the settlement was well started
and this has ever since been a very prosperous agri-
cultural township.
This chapter is brief and little apology is needed
for appending here the "Pioneer's Golden Wed-
ding" in Oneida — close neighbors in those days. Be-
fore there was a habitation in Oneida the nearest
woods path approaching it terminated at Wheaton's,
Fuller's and Boughton's in Chester. Uncle Samuel
Preston, opening a first path into Oneida left his
family (including his seven year old daughter
Sarah) with these neighbors while these men as-
sisted him in cutting a path eight miles to his land
and putting up a frail shanty into which he moved
his family on March 4, 1837, the day Van Buren
was inaugurated President, Nichols family came
from Canada to Oneida almost immediately after-
ward. Among the early weddings Aaron Boughton
married Maria Nichols and ten years from this
earliest settlement George Nichols married Sarah
Preston, thus organizing a family afterward well
known throughout Eaton County. At their Golden
Wedding, February, 1897, I said to them :
A PIONEER'S GOLDEN WEDDING.
Here, in the forest primeval, mid endless
Profusion of ibeech and of maple,
Through valleys and dales of elm and swamps
Of tamarack forbidding and solemn,
O'er hills sparsely topt by the oak and the hazel,
Through marshes and streams and morasses
Entangled with wild grass and tag-alder, with hearts
98 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
As strong as the heart of the oak
Came an earnest band of New England farmers.
Three full score of years have now passed
And the few that remain are assem'bled again;
And we of their friends who stand with them
Are here to recall a happy event
That gladdened their homes in the forest.
Not the first happy event that occurred,
For glad events oft were occurring.
Hardships, 'tis true, formed their regular order
Of living, their work and their rest,
So to speak, and their diet. But pleasui'es there were,
And sweetest of these was their courting.
This always was well done before, out oft
Was repeated again after marriage;
For the happiest life, the poet has said,
That to mortal on earth can be given
Is always to court, yes, after you're wed,
Thus life here is a foretaste of heaven.
What sacrifice more sublime has been made,
Told or sung, what deeds more heroic.
Than the life of the Ibride who left all beside
And, clinging like vine to an oak.
Accompanied her husband through forests as wild
As the beasts in their lair, or the red men.
And with no neighbors save these gave her life
And her love to the man who in turn
Would give all of his love and his life and his labor
To shield her and provide for her children?
Your fortune it was to be reared in a pioneer home
Such as I have described.
The comforts were few and labors were hard
Your father's keen love and devotion
And your mother's affection and untiring care
E'er governed and guarded your life,
Directed your steps and led you in holy
Communion with Nature's rude charms.
The roar or the wail of the wind in the wood
iSeemed murmuring prayer and song;
The loud pealing thunder was God's voice
pioneer's golden wedding. 99
Responding or shouting, Amen.
The dark rolling clouds, now touching the trees,
Were Gideon's fleeces, you knew.
And the 'bright setting sun, dispersing their gloom,
Formed your beauteous pictures and true.
They were mountains of gold or chariots of God,
Or the highways or by-ways of angels.
Though your home was a hut you had no need for vain art
For the high art of God was about you;
And His beauteous bow bespanning the heavens,
Descending on forest boughs
Almost to your feet with promise replete,
God's promise repeated anew;
For with pencil of light, dipped in pure waters bright,
He had painted that promise for you.
So the birds with their song and the beasts with their bleat.
And the echoing sounds of the forest,
Made it seem a vast church and these were the choir,
All singing while mankind should enter;
And the wild forest flowers with their perfume so sweet
iSeemed sweetly bedecking the altar;
The stars were the lights in the dome of God's church
Or the eyes of His angels upon you.
And you were a child. But God touched your heart
And planted pure seed of affection;
And when it had grown and its blossoms were shown
Behold, 'twas the love of a woman —
The fairest of flowers that ever may bloom,
The pure, spotless love of a woman.
And a hero there came as heroes will come.
With his heart all aflame, and he worshipped
That ibeautiful flower. So he stole your whole heart
And transplanted that love to his own.
You recked not of the theft but followed the love
And joined your whole heart with his
In beautiful love and feminine trust.
That the affection might grow as God willed;
For, though planted by God and nurtured by man,
The purest affection may wither
Unless woman be there and by her constant care
She guards it in inclement weather.
100 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
So here, in the forest primeval, just fifty
Full years agone at this hour,
The priest proclaimed to the world what God
Had already done, that your two hearts
Were but one, and thenceforth your two lives became one
Flowing on in earnest devotion.
As two crystal streams unite in one broadening brook
And ever flow on to the ocean.
Then came the mystery of heaven to earth-
Three of you soon and the three were one;
Like showers of manna God's gifts came down
And crowded your humble home.
The dearest and sweetest of blessings that God
E'er has given to mortal below
Are ripest affection of wife of his youth
And glad love of children she bore him.
These you have reared in patient and Christian
Devotion. The long days of toil
And the dark sleepless nights receive their reward
In true children's filial affection.
Then thrice blessed are you for not only numerous
Children but children's children's
Children, to the fourth generation, arise up
And call your memory blessed.
Yes, golden indeed, and golden of goldens
And rarest of weddings is this one;
Not only four generations unite with your friends
In wishing blessings upon you, but rarest
Of facts, your mother and aunt v/ho have watched
Through all of your life with affection
Are with you anon. So five generations
Wish you happy returns that may follow.
Yes, Sarah and George, great grandparents you may be
But children you are, her affection to rest on,
You're children, I say, good children today.
To great, great grandmother Preston.
So we bring you these tokens of kindest regard
And place them here plainly before you.
Hoping the future may bring you still richer reward.
With smiles of heaven still beaming o'er you.
KALAMO TOWNSHIP
The first purchases of land in Kalamo Township
were in 1835. The government ''tract book" re-
cords fourteen purchases that year and fifty-six in
1836, mostly by "speculators" whose names we can
scarcely afford to record. In September, 1836, P. S.
Spaulding having purchased land here came and
built the first cabin in town. He then w^ent for his
family with whom he returned in November the
same year but, while absent for his family, Martin
Leach arrived with his family and occupied Mr.
Spaulding 's shanty.
The pioneers had a custom of calling a man "set-
tled" only wdien his family were with him. Thus
Mr. Leach claimed to be the first settler but Mr.
Spaulding has a claim to a certain priority. Aaron
Brooks came the same autumn. Mr. Spaulding be-
came a prominent citizen well known throughout the
county and w^as honored w^ith offices of trust.
Hiram Bowen arrived in November, 1837, with
his wife and four small children and accompanied
his brother Daniel B. Bowen who brought his bride
of three weeks to this wild wilderness. The next
day after arrival he planted apple seeds in a sap-
trough and from these raised the first orchard and
the first apples grown in the township as they were
in bearing in six years. D. B. Bowen 's house was a
101
102 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
well known stopping place for pioneers and trav-
elers. He lived to be ''the oldest living resident of
the town." Harvey Wilson, brother-in-law to D. B.
Bowen moved in in 1838, and while building his
cabin moved in with the latter. His brother Peter
came in later.
George Wilson, not related to these, came in 1843,
and stopped with Mr. Bowen a few days and then
moved into the log schoolhouse while he built on his
own land. This w^as a common custom with
pioneers. If any one had a roof over his head it
furnished ready shelter for any incoming neighbor.
The elasticity of these cabins was most astounding
as witnessed by their sometimes furnishing sleeping
quarters for thirty-six persons. If school were not
in session the schoolhouse furnished ready domicile.
Shall we pause to describe this most interesting
edifice 1
It is already a legend and will interest more
and more the coming generations. It was a log
cabin, of course, and roofed with bark, troughs or
shakes, which were long shingles riven by the
pioneers. In the earliest schooUiouses in this county
there was at one end a great fireplace whose capa-
cious throat helped amazingly to clear away and
consume the encumbering forest. On three sides of
the room pegs were driven into the logs and upon
these wide, smooth riven slabs were laid for desks.
In front of these were puncheon benches. To write
or cypher all pupils faced the wall. To recite they
KALAMO TOWNSHIP. 103
turned gracefully around upon the bench, the grown
girls gathering their skirts modestly about their
ankles. Grown boys brought their axes and cut
abundant, but green, fuel from the surrounding
forest. A wooden latch with buckskin string fur-
nished fastening for the door and with the string
' * drawn in " it was a lock as well. A few years later
stoves were obtainable and the open fireplace was no
longer a necessity. Blackboards were unknown,
neither was the house equipped with maps, charts,
globes nor encyclopedias.
But to return to the earlier settlers — John Mc-
Derby and John Davis arrived in the spring of
1837. The latter 's cattle strayed away and were
finally found near Eaton Rapids.
Jonathan Dean, Sr., came in 1837. He was a ver-
itable "son of the revolution." His father was a
soldier and was with Washington at Valley Forge.
Mr. Dean crossed the Detroit River into Michigan
on the third of July, 1837, and spent the Fourth in
that then small but enterprising village. He re-
mained with his family at Plymouth through the
summer but in the fall his three older boys drove
ten head of cattle and two hogs all the way via.
Jackson, Marshall and Bellevue to Kalamo. They
boarded with Louis Stebbins at Carlisle while build-
ing a shanty. The rest of the family arrived on
Christmas day, 1837. The son, Jonathan Jr., who
became the father of our honored Frank A. Dean,
was but seven years old when they arrived.
104 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
Many incidents are related of the Deans in their
new home. Indians were abundant. Fifty or a
hundred often camped in this township for the
winter, going to their planting grounds in the
spring. It was twenty-five miles to the nearest
grinding mill, at Marshall. Mr. Dean watched the
Indian method of grinding and copied it. Instead
of pounding upon a flat stump he hollowed the end
of an upright log and with a stone pestle did effec-
tive grinding and the locality was known far around
as "Pestle Hill." Mr. Dean's eldest son, William,
was much of a hunter but not always successful.
He asked a stalwart young Indian to show him his
method. He replied, "Come on, me show you."
Finding a deer track he followed it upon his fastest
run with William at his heels and continued this far
into Barry County. Finally said, "No catch 'im
today" and turned homeward. William now took
the lead at a pace the Indian could scarcely follow
jumping logs and streams until one proved too
wide for the Indian's powers. He fell short and
was doused to his waist. On reaching the Indian
camp all, including the squaws, laughed most heart-
ily at the Indian who was so badly beaten at his
own game.
Erastus demons did not settle here until 1859,
but in June, 1838, he drove his team of horses from
Marshall to visit the Herring brothers who came
that spring and demons' horses on this trip are
said to be the first horses driven in Kalamo.
K ALAMO TOWNSHIP. 105
E. D. Lacey settled in Kalamo in 1843. Ed. Lacey
became our prominent banker at Charlotte, then
Comptroller of the Currency at Washington and
later president of the Bankers Bank of Chicago.
Joseph Gridley, well known throughout the
county, settled here in 1846, and during the Civil
War was postmaster in Kalamo.
Until March 15, 1838, Bellevue Township had com-
prised the northwest quarter of Eaton County. By
act of legislature of that date the north half of Belle-
vue was organized into a new township by the name
of Kalamo, ^'and the first township meeting there-
in shall be at the house of Alonzo Stebbins in said
township. ' ' A year later, on March 21, Carmel was
separated from this, leaving Kalamo of its present
size. P. A. Stebbins was elected the first supervisor
and succeeded by Bezaleel Taft, E. H. Evans, Hiram
Bowen, P. S. Spaulding, E, D. Lacey, Benjamin
Estes. Several of these alternated and were re-
peatedly elected. In 1844, there were fifty-three
resident taxpayers, and the future prosperity of the
township was assured.
Previous to 1856 a grist mill and a store had been
built at Kalamo village. Joseph Kent kept hotel
in his log house. Kalamo postoffice was established
in 1845 and with Joseph Kent postmaster, mail was
brought from Bellevue once a week.
In 1873 Frank P. Davis surveyed the village plat.
His father before him, Willard Davis of Vermont-
ville, had been a surveyor as well as teacher and
106 PIONEEE HISTOKY OF EATON" COUNTY.
legislator. He taught, for a few weeks, in Bellevue
the first school ever taught in the county, varying
his usefulness by lay preaching on Sundays. He
surveyed and assisted in opening many of the early
roads in the county.
A sawmill was built at Carlisle in 1837 by Charles
Moffat. It was afterward owned and operated by
0. A. Hyde and the locality was known as ' ' Hyde 's
Mills." E. D. Lacey afterward owned the mill and
operated it until he was elected county register
when he moved to Charlotte. Carlisle postoffice was
established about 1850.
The first schoolhouse in town was built at Car-
lisle and William Fuller was the first teacher. About
1840 a school was kept in the southwest corner of
the town in the Evans neighborhood. Mrs. Peter
Wilson taught school in her own house in the Bowen
neighborhood. In 1879 there were eleven school dis-
tricts with 528 children of school age and $3,760
worth of school property in the township.
It is said that the largest tree in the county and
perhaps the largest in the State, formerly stood in
Kalamo Township, a gigantic sycamore, hollow the
whole length, and the hollow sixteen or seventeen
feet in diameter. A door was cut into this and it
is said that men road in on horseback. The tree
was cut down with the purpose of taking a section
to Marshall to be occupied as a grocery. There were
no auto trucks in those days and the scheme was
abandoned from lack of transportation facilities.
WALTON TOWNSHIP
The government "tract book" shows five pur-
chases of land in Walton in 1835 and seventy-three
in 1836 ; most of these by speculators who never set-
tled here. Captain James W. Hickok, son of a
Revolutionary soldier who was present at the sur-
render of Burgoine in 1777, was the first settler in
this territory arriving in February, 1836, and bring-
ing his family the same season. Coming in from
Bellevue his wife's limb was broken before they
reached their wild-wood home and she was carried
on a litter back to Bellevue to the home of a friend
where she remained in bed many weeks and on the
7th of September a son was born to her, the first
male child born in Eaton County. He was given
the full name of our distinguished citizen, and later
our Congressman, Isaac E. Crary Hickok, Captain
Hickok was afterward six times elected township
supervisor and also elected to both branches of
State legislature.
The second settler was P. P. Shumway who be-
came the first supervisor. His daughter, born July
4, 1838, was the first child born in the township.
The third settler was Joseph Bosworth who raised
his shanty on October 10 and moved in the 11th,
"and slept welL" His nearest neighbor was Cap-
tain Hickok, three miles south and to the north no
107
108 PIONEEB HISTOKY OF EATON COUNTY.
house was nearer tlian ''Searls street, Charlotte."
His place was afterward known as "Bosworth's
Mill." His diary records: "October 26, cut dam
timber; November 2, had bee on mill dam." This
was upon his own place, on a small creek and later
known as ''Mill Creek." During the following
winter Mr. Bosworth w^orked at building his mill
which was raised June 20, 1840, but a freshet carried
it away on June 27. The dam was washed away
soon after but all was repaired and the mill began
sawing December 7, 1840. His son, Miles L., was
born January 10, 1839.
Eight years after the first settlement there were
fifty-three resident taxpayers in the township but
many of these were at Olivet whose history over-
shadows the rest of Walton. The early settlers
found an Indian village on the present site of Olivet.
Eev. J. J. Shipherd, familiarly known at Olivet as
"Father Shipherd", was the founder of Oberlin
college and sought to found another on like plans
at Grand River City, better known as Delta Mills, in
Eaton County. In this project he seemed, for a
time, successful. Sufficient land was purchased
and in New England he secured subscriptions for
sufficient money in 1836, but the panic of '37 made it
impossible to collect these and the project was aban-
doned although the foundation had been laid for a
large college building. Father Shipherd was again
commissioned by authorities at Oberlin to locate a
site for another colony and college. On his way
OLIVET. 109
from Marshall to Delta Mills lie became lost in tlie
oak grubs of Walton. He rested upon tlie hills at
Indian Village and three times he essayed to go
northward, but three successive times he found
himself back upon the same hills where now stands
Olivet college. He interpreted this as Divine guid-
ance and kneeling in prayer dedicated the site then
for the future college. He named the hill ^ ' Olivet ' '
and Indian Creek he called "Brook Kedron." The
land was secured but the colony and the college
were conceived in poverty and brought forth in
destitution. He returned to Oberlin where one man
had already promised his family to go with the new
colony. This was ''Father Hosford", the father
of the well known Prof. 0. Hosford. He solicited
other families to join as that of Carlo Reed (father
of our esteemed Fitz L. Reed), W. C. Edsell, Hiram
Pease, Phineas Pease, George Andrus, with their
families, and four single men, A. L. Green, Phineas
Hagar, Joseph Bancroft and Fitz L. Reed. The
three former came as students for the college. "With-
in the households were two young ladies, Jennie
Edsell and Abby Carter. The entire colony con-
sisted of twenty-four adults and fourteen children.
They left Oberlin on February 14, 1844, driving
some cattle and their conveyances drawn by ox
teams. If there is no mistake in the published dates
they arrived at Olivet ten days later. They ar-
rived on Sunday and Mr. Shumway vacated his
premises for them and made them welcome to any
110 PIONEEE HISTORY OP EATON COUNTY.
stores in his barn or cellar. Some found shelter in
the Indian huts until new shanties could be raised.
The winter and spring were given to clearing away
the oak grubs and planting crops. The creek was
dammed and mills begun. Eight months were
passed but "turning up the new soil" or "the ma-
laria arising from the dammed creek" (the causes
assigned by these hardy pioneers) brought ague
every second day and terror every first. Modern
science reveals that mosquitoes inoculated them with
ague but this they never dreamed. In October they
seriously discussed abandoning the project entirely
but only a belief that God w^as testing their faith
held the half of them faithfully here while the other
half abandoned them.
Early in December, 1844, Olivet college was
opened with nine students. A. L. Green, one of the
students, erected of logs a private dormitory and
study for himself but it served as chapel and recita-
tion room and later as postoffice.
Two Oberlin students who had nearly completed
their theological course became the teachers. These
were Reuben Hatch and Oramel Hosford. Later
Mr. Hatch was succeeded by Prof. Bartlett. These
two with their wives were the teaching force for
fifteen years. Soon as a frame residence was
erected in Olivet it was utilized for a place of wor-
ship on Sundays. The policy of the legislature, for
a time, was to charter no college but the University.
This was then chartered as Olivet Institute.
OLIVET. Ill
Many youtlis received instruction here but by 1859
the rapid growth of the Union school system offered
nearly equally good advantages in every village of
size, and Olivet had ceased to grow. A crisis was
at hand. Many again thought of giving it up en-
tirely. But at this time Rev. M. W. Fairfield was
called as pastor of the church and principal of the
school. Under his direction the trustees secured a
charter for Olivet college and its doors were first
opened as such in September, 1859, with a freshman
class of five members. Your historian was there as
a junior prep. The faculty consisted of Rev. M. W.
Fairfield, Rev. 0. Hosford (who heard the first reci-
tation in Olivet and heard the same for half a cen-
tury), Rev. N. J. Morrison, Dr. A. A. Thompson
and Miss Mary J. Andrews.
The college buildings were a small two story
frame building (since known as Colonial Hall) with
two recitation rooms on the first floor and very small
dormitories above, and this and a small wooden
church ow^ned jointly by the church and college, were
the only occupied buildings. The college museum and
the college library were both domiciled in the church
entry. The bare walls w^ere up for Ladies' Hall,
since called Shipherd Hall, only these and nothing
more.
The pioneer days of Olivet Institute were over
and my history might well end here but I may briefly
add that President Fairfield resigned in 1860, and
college classes were broken up by the Civil War. In
112 PIONEEE HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
1862, Rev. Thomas Jones was appointed financial
agent and he succeeded in raising some of the much
needed funds. In 1864, Prof. Morrison was elected
president but resigned June 19, 1872. Prof. J. H.
Hewitt assumed his duties until June, 1875, when
Rev. H. Q. Butterfield was elected president.
My own experience at Olivet was in no way ex-
ceptional but typical and, for that reason only, per-
missible here. I remember well there was one stu-
dent and one only who hired his board and furnished
room and paid therefor cash, $1.50 a week. We
wondered greatly at his wealth or his profligacy.
Nearly all pupils were farmers' sons or daughters.
Nearly all rented bare rooms and furnished them
from their homes. Light housekeeping was the pre-
vailing practice. If the sons had sisters there, aU
went well. If parents resided near, very much of
cooking was done at home and sent in by mother.
Several young men would join together in a board-
ing club and bringing provisions from farm homes
would hire a woman by the week to cook for them.
They lived royally.
I was a lad of fourteen years who had never been
from home before. My roommate was an older lad
who had been my teacher the year before, moreover
he had been at Olivet one term before this and spent
some time with old friends while I was left alone. I
remember a feeling of dense loneliness at times
overcame me, but home-sickness, never. Our moth-
ers sent us from twenty-five miles away pies and
OLIVET. 113
cookies. I remember tliat neither lasted very long,
and that for a well known reason. We had flour and
mother had kindly arranged with our landlady to
bake our bread. She sent three hot loaves to our
room at a time. I remember one large loaf would
disappear at a first sitting. Dish washing would
have been our main difficulty — but we avoided it.
This was before the days of canned vegetables or
fruit, but mother provided us with green corn which
she had dried. Monday was our holiday and it was
my task each Monday to keep a kettle of this upon
our box stove soaking and boiling but somehow I
never made it palatable. Perhaps I forgot the salt
or seasoning.
I was told that the fact that I had come to Olivet
was significant call to the Congregational ministry
and that I should begin the study of Greek at once.
I bolted at this as I wanted the common school
studies to equip myself for teaching. They com-
promised, putting me into geometry. My teacher
of English grammar was a Latin student and we
learned only from the mistakes he made in English.
I was in Olivet when kerosene, or coal oil as it
was called, first came into use. One student there
and one only had a coal oil lamp. We wondered
greatly that he could turn the blaze up at pleasure.
The oil was dark colored and the blaze, although
not black, approached that color.
This was in the days when pioneers throughout
Eaton County were driven back to their former
114 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
liomes by the prevailing ague, but Olivet caught a
double or quadruple portion. That dammed creek
and decaying mill pond brought malaria or mos-
quitoes, to unendurable discomfort. I stayed my
limit, then on my well day, walked home through
drifting snow and had my chills not every other day
but every day for three full weeks.
Returning to the story of the town and village,
Edwin N. Ely came to Olivet as a student in 1848,
but soon became associated with A. L, Green and
his father in business enterprises. Milling and
mercantile business were conducted by the firm and
for many years they conducted the principle busi-
ness of the village. The first store in Olivet was
opened in 1848 under name of A. L. Green & Co.
The first counter was a rough board laid upon empty
boxes and Mr. Ely, then in their employ, opened
the stock of goods which had been taken in exchange
for a house and lot in Erie County, New York.
Walton's first postoffice was established in 1838
and Captain Hickok commissioned as first post-
master at the same time that Jonathan Searls was
commissioned first postmaster at Charlotte.
In May, 1839, school districts one and two were
organized. Between the ages of five and seventeen
years there were fourteen children in No. 1 and six
in No. 2. It was voted, that autumn, to build frame
schoolhouses in each district to cost respectively
$500 and $200. Laura Hart was employed to teach
district No. 1 for one dollar a week.
WALTON TOWNSHIP. 115
The early supervisors of Walton were P. P. Slium-
way, Flavel Stone, J. W. Hickok, A. L. Green, Carlo
Reed, Osman Chappell. The latter was elected four-
teen different times. Captain Hickok six times, B. W.
Warren five times, Asa K. Warren four times and
A. L. Green three times. He was also elected to
both branches of our State legislature and served
for many years as leading trustee for Olivet
college.
ONEIDA TOWNSHIP
The second purchase of land from the government
in Eaton County was from section 2 in Oneida. That
section includes the north half of the City of Grand
Ledge, the islands and the ledges. Perhaps the pur-
chaser, H. Mason, was a member of the surveying
party, or learned of them, but the purchase did him
little good. It was sold for taxes four years later.
Land in this township seemed exceptionally desir-
able as witnessed by four purchases in 1833, three
in '35 and eighty-five in 1836.
On the 5th of October, 1886, I said to my father,
John Strange, ''So far as we can learn, you are the
only person living who had set foot in Oneida fifty
years ago." He was not the first settler but of
land lookers, who afterward became settlers, he was
of the first party. Others followed but a day later.
He with his brother, George Strange, and Peter M.
Kent (or Kind, as his father spelled the name) slept
upon the ground under the canopy of heaven, upon
section 34 which they chose the following day. Also
on that day, October 6, 1836, they met in the
forest six men from Canada who selected land and
became the founders of Canada Settlement and
neighbors for fifty years.
The first actual settler in Oneida was Solomon
Russell ; guided by Stephen Groger, the first settler
in Eagle (the township next north) and a profes-
116
"^ ONEIDA TOWNSHIP. 117
sional land looker, he cut his road ten miles through
this limitless forest and landed his wife and small
children in a shanty mid two feet of snow in January
or February, 1837. His large family, except one
daughter, have long since passed away and she can
tell me nothing more of how he made this perilous
trip or who assisted him. He afterward had two
hired men, Robert Eix and Wm, Henry, who both
became settlers in the vicinity. Perhaps, and I may
say probably, they assisted in cutting this road,
building the shanty and bringing in the family. This
probability is rendered almost certain by the further
recorded fact that soon after this Mr. Russell fell
upon his axe and was severely cut and was carried
upon a litter back to Eagle. Indians may have car-
ried him, but probably Rix and Henry. It is said
that his incoming journey was by ox team from Or-
leans County, New York, through Canada and Oak-
land, Shiawassee and Clinton counties in Michigan.
Two of his brothers were also early settlers here.
William became the first grocer in Grand Ledge
and John W. became a wealthy farmer just west of
Grand Ledge. Their nephews also were early set-
tlers here.
The second settler (and he deserves the same
credit as the first for he believed himself alone in
this limitless forest) was Samuel Preston who came
in from the south, through Jackson and Spring-
port when there were but nine houses between
his place and Jackson. Robert Wheaton and Asa
118 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
Fuller had cut their path through some twenty miles
of forest from Bellevue and erected their shanties
the previous October. Mr. Preston followed their
trail to their homes in Chester. There he left his
wife and two small children while he hired these two
neighbors to assist in cutting a road to his land eight
miles further in. A friend had selected the land
for him the previous fall. In a day and a half they
reached the land. In a short time the shanty was
erected and covered when he returned for his fam-
ily and on the 4th of March, 1837, while Martin
Van Buren was taking oath of office in Washing-
ton, Mr. Preston and family ''settled" in a home
without floor, door or window. Blankets were hung
at these and they slept in assumed safety but upon
pushing the blankets at the door aside in the morn-
ing a large wolf was seen smelling at the door and
skulking away. Mr. Preston had Indian neighbors
but supposed there were no white settlers within
eight miles until Mr. Groger stumbled upon him
and told him of his neighbor Russell but one and a
half miles away and added, "Six Canadians are
slashing down timber to beat the oldest but two and
a half miles east of you." He was right. Three
brothers named Nichols and three named Nixon
had selected their land the October before and now
returned to remain. On the last day of February,
1837, they arrived, built their shanty and slept
in it the first night. Two of them returned to Can-
ada in April to bring back oxen to log up the trees
ONEIDA TOWNSHIP. 119
tliey liad cut down. They all became prominent men
in the county, State legislature, etc. The families
of Preston and Nichols became united in marriage
and their sons, grandsons and great grandsons are
today prominent professional or business men in
the cities of Grand Rapids, Ionia, Lansing and De-
troit, and Los Angeles, California.
They credit the place of third settler to John
Stanley who arrived with wife and family early in
the spring. He sowed two bushels of spring wheat
and from it harvested sixty bushels. They no longer
doubted the fertility of the soil. Mr. Stanley was
renowned for his facility in getting lost. He once
drove his cattle across Grand River where Lansing
now is, twelve miles away, thinking he was driving
them towards home. At another time he forded
Grand River six times thinking all the time he
was headed toward home. His neighbors spent
much time searching for him. He could not be-
lieve his pocket compass which would point in six
directions in a half hour.
The venerable T. W. Nichols, ''Uncle Walker",
arrived with the wives and families in June. His
three grown sons had preceded him. His three
younger sons came with him. George W. (later to
become the best known of them all) was then fifteen
and w^as delegated to drive the loose animals from
Canada. Hiram, younger still, became a preacher
and John Wesley, the youngest, became a prom-
120 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
inent lawyer in Charlotte. Daughters innumerable
married and settled round about.
School district No. 1 was soon organized here and
Abigail Billings taught the first term. She was
courted by, and married, Jason Nichols. They be-
came parents of a family of teachers and of a prom-
inent laAvyer of Lansing who bears his father's
name.
The second term was taught by my mother, then a
maiden, Emma 0. Sprague. I should not mention
this fact except for an unusual pioneer incident. It
was common for incoming pioneers to be housed in
the schoolhouse while building a shanty if there
was no school at the time but here was an unique
case of housing a family and the school at the same
time. It was easily managed. The family hid their
dishes in a box and repaired to the forest before
school hour where the husband cut trees and the
wife piled the brush until noon. The teacher and
pupils sat in the shade of the forest to eat their
lunch while the wife prepared and ate lunch with
her husband. Dishes were put away without wash-
ing and school again ''took up".
School district No. 3 was two miles further west.
My mother taught the first school there. One winter
there was no school when Edward McMullen arrived
with his numerous family. They occupied the
schoolhouse. He had but fifty cents upon arrival
here but Irishman-like he purchased with it a pig;
not for the parlor but kept it in a hollow log se-
ONEIDA TOWNSHIP. 121
curely fastened at tlie ends, but a knot hole at the
top served for feeding place. After a light snow,
bear's tracks were often seen around this log and
upon its top where bruin had smelled the pig beyond
his reach. One morning bruin left his tracks upon
the window sill where he had evidently smelled the
Irish fry within.
This story of the early settlement of South Oneida
has often been w^ritten and published but of North
Oneida I find no written record. Suffice it to say
that in the northwest four brothers named Johnson
settled in a very early day and gave it the name of
Johnson Settlement which it will doubtless ever
bear. Their school district is No. 2 and of course
numbered quite early. Truman and Orange John-
son both became, much later, merchants in Grand
Ledge. Smith and Morris Johnson remained, I
think, upon their farms well known and esteemed.
Four other brothers named Jones, later settled in
this neighborhood and reared large families, Wash-
ington, Simeon, Charles and Bradford were their
respective names. The latter became the father of
J. V. Jones, a teacher of much local renown, an ex-
ceedingly bright and apt teacher. Had he acquired
a college education combined with energy he might
have become a foremost teacher in the State.
In 1844, Eric Sutherland arrived from New York
with his large family of grown children, having
driven a team all the way. His grandchildren and
great grand and great, great grandchildren have be-
122 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
come very numerous in town. His oldest son Eliliu
had visited Oneida in 1842, but came to settle in
1845, In 1847, when the capital was located in Lan-
sing he took contract to clear trees from Washing-
ton avenue, there then being but one house in Lan-
sing. He also helped get out the timber for the old
State Capitol. His grain market was at Marshall
or Jackson fifty miles away. He started to name
his eight children all with initial E, Emory, Emily,
Elmer, Emerson, Ella C, etc., etc.
East of these was settled Philander Parmenter,
accidentally shot and killed while hunting deer. At
the corner east was George W. Jones who with his
brother-in-law, L. H. Ion, was often honored with
public office; and near him William Henry, who
became the wealthiest farmer in the township, and
Amadou Aldrich known far and near for his num-
erous family of sons and daughters. South of these
and nearer Oneida Center were Peter Cole, Peter
Blasier and Van Alstine. Mrs. Van Alstine lived
to be the last survivor of the early pioneers. To-
ward the southwest were Ambrose Preston, Henry
Earl and Benjamin Carr. At the west Rufus Lovel,
Lucius Benson and Dr. Lamb. Hixsons, Eddy and
Bailey were also early settlers.
At the site of the present city of Grand Ledge
Henry A. Trench was the early pioneer. He owned
forty acres at the very heart of the city. He was
sui generis. He was educated at Oberlin and was
for many years township inspector of schools. He
GRAND LEDGE. 123
lectured in the log sclioolliouses upon scientific sub-
jects and occasionally wrote correct but brief arti-
cles for the public press but, beyond this, he had
little idea of making his learning productive. He
had a soldering iron and went about among the
pioneers mending tin pans and was known as ''Tin-
ker Trench." He was an idealist and appreciated
his picturesque surroundings. When Grand Ledge
was becoming a village he said Nature had named
it — the only ledge upon the Grand. Why not Grand
Ledge as well as Grand Rapids! At a public meet-
ing called to name the incoming postoffice, names
of early settlers were proposed, but Reuben Wood
said, ''Let us give it a local name." George Jones,
always prompt upon his feet, made motion that it
be called Grand Ledge. This was unanimously
adopted. The question of who named Grand Ledge
has been as perplexing a problem as, "Who struck
Billy Patterson?" The above seems to divide the
honors according to the facts.
Edmund Lamson was also an early settler and
owned much of the land here. In the winter of 1848-
49 the legislature granted right to John W. Russell
and Abram Smith to dam Grand River at this point.
David Taylor joined with them in building the dam
and mill. This was later sold to Kent, Hixson &
Co.
In 1859 Reuben Wood and Nathan Allen built the
first store and put in a stock of goods on the north
side, planning that there should be the business
124 PIONEER HISTORY OP EATON COUNTY.
center. William Eussell kept the first small gro-
cery, also the first hotel.
The first bridge across the river was built in 1853
and the postoffice established in 1850 with Henry A.
Trench postmaster. There was no mail route but
villagers took turns in going for the mail. It was
understood in Lansing that whoever brought the
mail-bag was authorized to take the mail.
The original town of Grand Ledge was laid out
October 28, 1853, and the village incorporated by
act of legislature approved April 8, 1871.
The Township of Oneida was organized by act of
legislature, approved March 6, 1838, to include the
northeast one-fourth of Eaton County, "and the
first election shall be at the house of T. W. Nichols. ' '
On March 9, 1843, this was divided and Delta and
Windsor were formed. A year later the township
was again divided and Benton created, first called
Tom Benton for the distinguished U. S. Senator.
The early officers were, of course, chosen from
the larger field. Supervisor, A. Hayden; Town
Clerk, J. H. Nichols; Assessors, Samuel Preston,
John Slater and T. W. Nichols. Four of the Inger-
sols from Delta Mills were elected to offices at this
first election. Subsequent supervisors in Oneida,
T. W. Nichols, Erastus Fisher, George Jones, Eph-
riam Stockwell, L. H. Ion, Smith Johnson. Some
of these were several times elected.
According to the first State census, 1844, there
ONEIDA TOWNSHIP. 125
were at that time fifty-three resident taxpayers in
Oneida.
Of early incidents, typical of all pioneer life in
Michigan, Robert Starks, one of the earliest settlers,
had a wolf trap dragged away by a bear for sev-
eral miles but he was easily trailed and finally
killed.
Mrs. Samuel Preston, while alone with her small
children in their rude shanty, had a recently killed
pig hung in a small lean-to against the shanty. She
was surprised by the ever silent Indians, three of
whom suddenly stood beside her and demanded
meat. She shook her head, having none to spare.
They replied, "Smokeman (that is white man) kill
pig. ' ' She explained she needed it for her papooses,
pointing to them. Finally their spokesman replied,
"Me get it." and started for the outside entrance.
She ran before him and placing her back against
the door defended the meat and the Indians de-
parted. That she then fainted deponent saith not.
Her son, Horace Preston, born that first season,
1837, was the first child born between the Thorn-
apple and the Grand River. (Pioneers would say
first white child, for they counted Indians as neigh-
bors.) When this child was a few months old Mrs.
Preston spent the night with a sick neighbor a few
miles aw^ay and at morn started for home with the
babe upon her arm. She became lost in the forest
and wandered nearly the whole day with the babe
126 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
upon her arm which was partially paralyzed for
several weeks.
When my older sister w^as but one week old and
mother still in bed, they heard commotion at the
hog pen. The nurse (hired girl they called them
then) ran out and saw a bear biting and mauling
a pig toward the forest. She ran to the nearest
neighbor, a widow with daughters. They came and
pounded on the fence and scared bruin away. When
my father and his brother Charles returned home
they found the hog must be killed, but they set a
*' dead-fall" and baited it awaiting the bear's re-
turn. The next day they were rewarded by hearing
a terrific bawling or howling and there was bruin
with three immense pegs driven through him. Uncle
Charles crushed his skull with the axe-poll and
silence ensued. AAHien Mark Twain was shown
Adam's grave in a cave, he said he knew it w^as
Adam's for he reached in with a long pole and felt
the skeleton. I know the above is true for that
bear's skull was a favorite toy of my childhood.
ROXAND TOWNSHIP
Roxand was somewhat belated in lier early de-
velopment. Her lands seemed not so desirable to
either pioneers or speculators, as witnessed by the
fact that no lands were purchased there prior to
1836 and only twenty-five purchases that year,
which was not the case in any other township, and
contrasts strongly with Oneida where there had
been four times as many entries or purchases. For
this delay there were several reasons ; there were no
streams or promised mill sites which were such an
attraction in other towns. The land was heavily
timbered and lies mainly very flat and in the wet
season was largely under water. Now, thoroughly
drained, it exhibits some of the most productive
farms in the county, but pioneers were not looking
forward seventy-five years to thorough drainage.
Again it seemed remote. It was a long way from
Bellevue, the favorite enterport. It was not easily
accessible from the north, the east nor southeast
like Delta and Oneida. It was beyond the realm of
Mr. Groger in Eagle who led so many across Grand
River into Oneida and possibly Benton and Delta.
Orrin Rowland and Henry Clark were the first
settlers in 1837. Aaron and Benjamin French and
William Cryderman followed soon after in the
spring of 1838. Andrew Nickle also came at this
127
128 PIONEEK HISTOEY OF EATOlSr COUNTY.
time and raised corn and potatoes but he was not
''settled" as his wife did not arrive until fall. He
had begun improvements there January 1, 1838.
His first son, John Nickle, was born there in 1840,
one of the first births in the town. Lemuel Cole
located land there in 1837 but whether he settled
that year or the following is in dispute and perhaps
can never now be determined.
John McCargar, a young single man with time and
enterprise, came in 1837 and searched diligently
over several townships for land exactly to his fancy.
Samuel Preston, who had then been but a few weeks
in Oneida, finally showed him the tract that filled
his eye, upon the south town line of Roxand, high
and dry without a foot of waste. He purchased
two hundred acres. He was lost over night in a
swamp on his way to Ionia to secure this land. For
three months, in the spring of 1838, he lived alone
in a small shanty he had built upon this land, doing
his own cooking and without any help. He married
in 1843, and was then "settled."
Henry A. Moyer settled just west of him in 1839
and became very prominent in the town and county.
He was born in New York, February 12, 1812. He
came to Washtenaw County in 1833, and thence to
Eaton County. His home was the place of holding-
township elections and was a stopping place for
Indians. He and his wife were noted for their
hospitality. He was the first postmaster in Roxand
in 1849 and his son, W. Irving, was postmaster dur-
BOXAND TOWNSHIP. 129
ing the war and later. Mrs. Mary F. Youngblood,
sales manager for tliis History, is a daughter of
W. I. Moyer.
Henry A. Moyer took deep interest in public af-
fairs and offices were tlirust upon him during his
life which terminated in 1857. His four sons and
daughter (who married Dr. P. Green of Vermont-
ville) were all highly esteemed.
John Fullerton came with wife and two children
on July 4, 1843.
Another account says that John Dow was the first
settler in Roxand in 1837. He was upon the extreme
west line, his farm lying in both Roxand and Sun-
field. Rowland and Clark were in the east and
might have lived many months thinking there were
no others within many miles. Give due credit to all
for pioneer enterprise. Mr. Dow reported that he
drove an ox team forty-eight miles to mill ; the trip
and return required nine days. He was super-
visor of Chester when Roxand was a portion of
that town and afterward supervisor of Roxand and
Sunfield forty-three years, or so long that the mem-
ory of man ran not to the contrary.
Robert Rix settled in Roxand about 1840 but he
had a previous record connected with pioneer his-
tory of Eaton county that merits recall. We first
hear of him at Portland in 1835. In November of
that year he started with Mr. Hixson to drive ox
teams to Detroit for provisions. A terrible rain
storm overwhelmed them at night before they
130 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
reached Dewitt. They were drenched to their skins
and the oxen inextricably mired in darkness so in-
tense that naught could be seen. They remained all
night chilled to their bones with their teams in worse
plight still. They were able to proceed the next day
and from there to Detroit the roads were incon-
ceivably bad — no crossways over swamps, sloughs
nor streams and much travel had reduced the roads
to a mush axle deep. They were on their way to
Detroit from November 7 until December 25. A
merry Christmas truly. They stayed in the open
air eleven nights on this trip. Mr. Rix rightly said,
"No one can appreciate the difficulties and hard-
ships of such trips unless he has had similar ex-
periences."
We next find Mr. Rix in Oneida building the first
shanty there, and that for Solomon Russell. Mr.
Russell had cut a path to his land through ten miles
of trackless forest without guide except the survey-
ors ' marks. They began together to cut logs for the
shanty but while cutting the second log Mr. Russell
fell upon his axe and nearly severed his arm. He
was cared for and Mr. Rix completed the shanty
alone and the family moved in before it was com-
pleted, while the weather was intensely cold.
In 1837 Mr. Rix entered forty acres on section 21
in Oneida and settled there. Two years later he
sold and moved to Ada in Kent county w'here he
remained one and a half years and next settled more
permanently on section 35 in Roxand. He was
EOXAND TOWNSHIP. 131
elected in 1843 the first supervisor of Roxand but
resigned and John Dow succeeded him and held the
office until 1851, when he built a new house upon
his farm, but across the road in Sunfield, and there
he was supervisor for the succeeding twenty-eight
years. First elected in 1851, Henry A. Moyer was
supervisor of Roxand five years and then John
Vanhouten until 1871.
Peter C. Vanhouten settled here in 1838, and
Adam Boyer in 1839.
By act of legislature, March 19, 1843, this town-
ship was set off from Chester and given the name of
Roxand. The first election was April 17, 1843, with
but eighteen electors.
The origin of the name was long in dispute. It
was not Rock-sand; that is not found there. All
agree the name came through illegible writing.
Some said the petitioner asked that it be named
Roxana for a notorious woman. The legislative
clerk mistook the final a for a d. Hence the name.
Others say the clerk could read R o x and some-
thing more was utterly illegible, so he wrote and.
The Capitol was located at Lansing in 1837, when
there were at most but two houses there. Roads
were needed to reach this important center. Wil-
lard Davis of Vermontville was employed to survey
a State road from that place. A very direct route
would have been directly east through the wilds of
Chester and Benton to where Potterville now is and
thence into Lansing by the Battle Creek or Char-
132 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
lotte road. An equally direct route would have
been from Vermontville northeast into the black ash,
elm and soft maple flats of Roxand and thence east
into Lansing but the road was laid with many angles
to accommodate the early settlers. From Ver-
montville northeast, a few miles to the township line,
thence east to pass Moyer, McCargar, Maxson, H.
Earl and Ambrose Preston, thence again northeast
to reach Samuel Preston and McMullen and again
east to pass Strange, Huckins and to Canada Set-
tlement, thence northeast to accommodate John
and Samuel Nixon in Delta and on to what is now
known as Saginaw street. This led into Lansing a
half mile north of the Capitol and was nearly a mile
further than if they had gone directly east on St.
Joseph street. This would have been again through
black ash flats, needing cross-way for many miles.
I well remember when, many years later, Samuel
Nixon circulated a very urgent remonstrance
against opening St. Joseph street saying it would be
ten years before it could be as good as the road now
in use. Traveling that road today between those
fertile farms we may well wonder that anyone ever
opposed opening a road upon that section line.
The diagonal portions of that Lansing State road
have nearly all been taken up and closed long ago.
Farmers do not favor diagonal roads through their
farms although they somewhat shorten distances to
market.
It was not until 1869 that Grand Ledge had an
EOXAND TOWNSHIP. 133
operating railroad bringing a market somewhat
nearer to Eoxand and about ten years later still
Roxand had a railroad of her own and a sprouting
village at Mulliken.
A girl student at Olivet college in more recent
years read an essay describing her grandfather's
flight through the forest pursued by the wolves of
Roxand. This was taken by some as a real pioneer
incident but the then living pioneers who had known
the forest in the early days regarded it as purely
imaginative fiction.
Speaking of pioneers and of colleges it is perhaps
fitting here (space permitting) to pay some tribute
to that pioneer of farmers' colleges, the first State
agricultural college ever established on earth, our
own Michigan Agricultural College. This was es-
tablished near Lansing and opened for students in
1857. I was graduated there ten years later in 1867
(the first young man, I think, from Oneida ever
graduated from any college.) My classmate, Henry
Jenison of Eagle, and I are now the oldest surviving
alumni.
At the semi-centennial of the birth of this college
a very important celebration was given in May,
1907. President Roosevelt gave a memorable ad-
dress. I prepared for that occasion the following
verse :
The Fakmers' Morning.
"And the Evening and, the Morning were the first Day."
In. early twilight of our history ere the darkness covered all
One named Cain attempted farming, all because of Adam's fall.
But his fruits were not accepted; he was sent to land of Nod,
(Meaning, doubtless, land of slumber) He was curst, we read,
of God.
And darkness covered the earth.
And men toiled for their subsistence, digging roots and gnawing
bark,
Scarcely clothed and ever hungry, toiling, sitting in the dark.
Then some puny goats they captured, yielding milk and flesh
of kid.
And some herds of kine surrounded; that was all the farmers did.
And darkness veiled the whole earth.
Then the centuries kept passing and this darkness, ever dense,
Never lifted, never lifted; e'en its substance you could sense.
Sixty centuries of night time; men and women homespun clad;
Children in the snow were barefoot; comforts very few they had.
And poverty ruled o'er the household.
Sixty centuries of struggling; men had learned to wield the
scythe,
Or with ax or hoe or sickle in the broiling sun to writhe.
Men were racked on wheel of labor, and their homes could
scarce provide
With the means for their subsistence; little wealth was there
beside.
And the night wore weary on.
Some there were who carried torches, thinking thus to shed some
light
In the dark and doleful places of that long drawn toilsome night.
There was Dr. Benjamin Franklin with his little lamps alive,
134
M. A. C. SEMI-CENTENNIAL. 135
"He who by the plow would prosper must, himself, hold it
or drive."
General Washington, the farmer, wakeful to his country's needs,
Advocated crop rotation, said "Import some better breeds."
And a distant light seemed dawning.
In the twilight of the morning Bakewell dreamed, as in the
night,
How we might improve our cattle. Then he woke and struck
a light.
Jethro TuU said, "Lessen labor, let machinery lighten toil.
Humphrey Davy held a search light; like X-ray it shone through
soil.
Laws and Gilbert, like great prophets, held aloft this brilliant
light:
"Thought should dominate all labor." Then may end this
darkest night.
And our horizon was brightening.
Then the stars seemed paling gently, stars of superstitious light.
These had given light scarce plenty through that long drawn,
toilsome night.
By their light our great ancestors thought they read in wav-
ering line,
"Watch the moon for all your movements. Plow and plant and
pluck by sign."
Now the stars are swiftly paling. What's that marvelous light
in east?
While their eyes are eager watching it has rapidly increased.
'Tis the rising sun approaching.
While they watched a blinding, fierce light cast o'er earth its
dazzling sheen;
Farmers and their sons were startled; naught like it before
was seen.
And they cried out, "Put that light out ere it blinds our blinking
eyes."
But their sons looked eager at it, questioning if their sires were
wise.
It was the State Agricultural College.
136 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
And they watched it through smoked glasses as from earth it
seemed to rise,
Glasses too of many colors, for its brightness tried their eyes.
While some blinking eyes were blinded by the light that shone
thereon,
Other intellects illumined glowed like dew drops in the sun.
Myriads of glistening dew drops sparkled in this morning bright,
And to some that sun seemed precious when they first beheld
its light.
And they bathed their souls in its sunshine.
Dew drops kissed by sun soon scatter, but they fructify the
plants;
And the plants begin to blossom, welcoming the sun's advance.
And the morning glories, early ope' at first approach of sun.
Many blossoms greet the farmer from this light that's scarce
begun.
And the college light is looming.
Some bouquets already gathered from the fields she's looked upon
Testify by their sweet perfume of the light they've drawn
therefrom.
Large bouquets of many blossoms, rich with fragrant honey, too.
Shall I name to you some blossoms that to all the world are new
While we bask in the college sunshine?
First and foremost, cultured children, taught by college or her
sons,
For she's sent forth many teachers, some enthusiastic ones.
"Yes, them flowers are purty, purty," sordid sires may some-
times say,
"But we want flowers that yield us honey; something that we
know will pay,
"Something we can turn to money; meed of labor, learning, law,
"The almighty golden dollah; that's what all are fighting fob."
iSuch the sordid sentiment of some.
M. A. C. SEMI-CENTENNIAL. 137
Well, from sheep's back shear your fleeces, forty pounds, some-
times, you know,
All because our light increases; we have learned to make it
grow.
And your porkers from old rooters man's intelligence has grown.
Your best cow gave how much butter, ere the college light had
shown?
Are you using sterilizers for the microbes which you own?
Have you learned of fertilizers now by college nodules grown
By soil innoculation?
Are you raising beets for sugar, canning waste in silo too?
Spraying fruits, dehorning cattle? Thousand things you now
can do.
What do your tomatoes look like by the side of ancient ones?
Are you raising seedless apples, thornless berries, pitless plums?
What destroyed the smut and weevil? What think you of pedi-
greed wheat?
What about that improved seed corn adding millions in one
State?
■These but morning lory blossoms, many hued.
Sixty centuries of night! The day should surely be as long.
Half a century of light; and now we pray that light prolong.
These were blossoms plucked at morn; what may we hope from
midday sun?
The college light has scarcely dawned. Watch for results not
yet begun.
The rising sun makes dew drop diamonds; 'tis midday sun
that ripens grain.
The morning sun has ibrought us treasure. None can conceive
our future gain.
We've learned that light can lessen labor, God's gifts to gather
from glad soil.
'Tis morning now, awake! Arise, and greet the sun that lights
our toil —
While the College Sun is rising!
BENTON TOWNSHIP
Benton, Tom Benton, was not far behind the other
townships, first settled in 1837. There was but one
purchase of government land here in 1835, but there
were forty-five in 1836.
Japhet Fisher is counted the first settler in the
spring of 1837, although he was not married until
1838. We first learned of him when he was "hired
man" with Samuel and Jonathan Searls when
theirs was the only habitation in the county save at
Bellevue. They were at the southeast edge of the
Charlotte prairie. Fisher w^as with them when Mrs.
Searls so suddenly died. He ran at once to Bellevue
to tell them of the approaching funeral cortege and
to send his own clothes as far as Indian Village,
where Olivet now is, that the mourning husband
might be decently dressed. Fisher selected land
near Searls but in applying for it he named town-
ship three north instead of two north as he intended.
This placed him in Benton six miles further away.
For a time he thought the land not worth occupying
but in 1837, he raised both corn and potatoes there
while he courted a girl in Chester. He was a some-
what eccentric character and almost constantly went
barefooted until his soles were callused until briars
and thistles affected them not at all. His frolicsome
neighbors often experimented with them greatly to
their amusement.
138
BENTON TOWNSHIP. 139
Orrin Moody was the next settler in the northwest
part of town where he built his shanty in the spring
of 1837. He came in on the Clinton trail but must
have cut his own path through several miles. He
was to the manner born. I know not how many
farms he had cleared in New York and elsewhere;
but when this farm was well cleared he moved three
miles further east into dense forest where he and
his grown sons cleared three farms and then went to
the wilds of Isabella county. Moody was an expert
in all the arts of clearing land. It was his delight,
at a logging bee, to select his three rollers or assist-
ants, and then, with his team of oxen, to put up more
and larger log heaps than all the rest.
Frederic Young came in May of the same year
and built his shanty at the north edge of the ''Old
Maid's swamp" one and one-half miles from neigh-
bors and so it remained for many years. I remem-
ber many a winter's night listening to the howling
wolves and asking father, where are they! "Over by
Fred Youngs 's" was the constant answer. Mrs.
Young was very timid and her long pioneer life
must have been constant misery.
Hosey Hovey, a surveyor, settled here in 1840,
and left his name to Hovey Settlement, which it may
ever retain although otherwise his name is nearly
forgotten.
B. F. Bailey was an early settler and the first
supervisor. His son, Frank Bailey, born in 1841,
140 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
was the first male ''white" child born in the town-
ship.
H. H. Hatch moved in in 1840 and his daughter
Gertrude was the first child born here.
Bennett I. Claflin on the 4th of July, 1842, twelve
days after his marriage, settled here. "Their chil-
dren arise up and call them blessed." He was the
first mail carrier. He carried mail once a week
from Jackson to Grand Eapids on the old Clinton
Trail and he had several holes dug along the route
where he would pass the night alone with his mail-
bag. This was a United States road built under
territorial rule. It ran from Clinton, through Jack-
son, Spicerville, Eaton, a corner of Benton, then
Chester, etc. Most of it has long since been closed.
William Quantrell settled here in May, 1841. He
had been a brick maker and finding upon his land
abundant clay of good quality he, at once, began
brickmaking. His product was used largely in
Charlotte and in many farm dwellings.
Moses Fox settled here in 1840, and Lorenzo
Hatch in 1842, James Taggart about the same time.
He became well known for his rugged worth and
was eight times elected supervisor.
John Higby settled here October 14, 1841. His
sons became merchants in Charlotte where the sons
of later generations still remain, honored and
worthy.
Benjamin Landers was an early settler who was
six times elected supervisor. He with Hiram Mc-
BENTON TOWNSHIP. 141
Intyre was school inspector for a generation. Estes
Mclntyre, a brother, became a wealthy farmer here.
Morgan Thomas was supervisor from 1848- '50.
Ira Bailey, "Fiddler Bailey," "Rail Bailey" was
an early character here of whom many amusing-
stories are told. Long, angular, awkward; he re-
quired an immense pair of boots but asked to buy
them very cheap as he wanted to pay cash. That
was a rare offer for those days but he was finally
fitted. To test them he deliberately walked out in
mud ankle deep and returning he again explained
that he wanted to pay cash but he had not a cent in
the world. A tradition remained for many years
that he never paid for the boots but the amusement
this afforded the roisterers paid for them many
times. This giant could run like the wind. Pitted
against the assumed fleetest man in the county he
easily outran him and then said he could outrun him
while carrying the heaviest rail in a given fence.
This too he did. Another version is that he car-
ried the heavy rail and outran a horse a distance of
ten rods, Bailey taking a running start, the horse
to start as he passed him. Like the settlers in Belle-
vue these men were much given to athletic sports
and horse-play. Merrils Freeman was the smallest
man in town and men of giant strength like Bailey
and Jim Taggart were dumbfounded when Freeman
could easily outlift them.
These Jacksonian democrats, Higby, Hovey, Tag-
gart, et. al., would name their town for "Old Bui-
142 PIONEEK HISTORY OP EATON COUNTY.
lion", United States Senator Thomas H. Benton.
It was organized by act of legislature, March 9,
1843, and named Tom Benton.
When Linus Potter arrived and settled where Pot-
terville now is, in November, 1844, he said he should
have that Tom cut off and so he did at once. March
19, 1845, it was renamed by the legislature, Benton.
The following year Linus Potter was elected super-
visor and because of his early influence and the
prominence of his sons in later years he deserves
extended notice. The object of this history is to
record pioneer experiences and his were interesting
if not unique.
Linus Potter came from Cayuga County, New
York, in autumn of 1830, via. Erie canal, then very
new and very small, and by boat to Detroit. Their
destination at that time was Saline, then the largest
village on the road to Chicago. He and his wife
walked this entire distance. Their son, George N.,
was then barely three years old and their daughter,
Louisa (afterward the wife of John F. Carman),
was a babe in arms. It is related that Mr. Potter
carried all their worldly goods in a bundle upon his
back. This he carried ahead as far as seemed safe
and leaving it returned for the wife and children.
He carried George, and his wife the babe, to the
bundle or beyond to a resting place upon a log while
he again carried the bundle, thus he walked the en-
tire distance from Detroit to Saline three times over.
BENTON TOWNSHIP. 143
He tlien built in Saline the first frame house ever
erected there.
T. Edgar Potter, their second son, was born in
Saline, March 10, 1832, and from his autobiography
I gather the following facts. Quoting, "I well re-
member when the Michigan Central Railroad was
finished as far west as Ypsilanti. My father was in-
vited to the celebration there and took me with him.
We witnessed the arrival of the first passenger train
from Detroit carrying the officers of the road and
General Cass who was to speak. About two inches
of light snow had fallen and we saw two men sitting
on opposite ends of the crossbar with large splint
brooms with which they swept the snow from the
rails. Such was the snowplow of that day. My
father, who was a surveyor, had just returned from
a surveying trip and he was called upon for a
description of the new country. On reaching home I
told my mother I had seen the roasted ox, the brass
band, a railroad train and had heard General Cass
and my father make speeches to the people.
''My father was a strong whig and when, in the
campaign of 1840, he heard that General Harrison
was to speak at Fort Meigs in Ohio, seventy-five
miles from us, he helped get up a party of sixty men
to hear him. Their wagon was equipped with a flag
staff, the stars and stripes, two live coons and two
barrels of cider. They returned seven days later,
all except the cider.
"By January, 1845, five other children had been
144 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
added to our family and we were on our way to the
wilds of Eaton County. My father and brother
George had preceded us and, cutting their road four
miles beyond the last inhabitant at Pray's, had
built for us two shanties each sixteen by twenty and
and eight foot roofed space between them. Not a
nail was used in these two shanties and the only ex-
pense for them was for two windows each with six,
seven by nine, panes of glass. Though I was not
quite thirteen years old my father sent me ahead,
one day in advance, with our live stock, three cows,
two yearlings, five sheep and two hogs. My father
provided a rude map with places marked where I
was to stop over night. I was allowed six days for
the trip and was not overtaken until the fifth day
at Eaton Rapids. We had twelve miles yet to go
but we reached our shanty before night and met a
warm welcome by George who had been left there
by father to guard the place.
''All of us seven children had measles that winter
but in spite of our hardships we managed to clear
seven acres and get them into spring crops. When
harvested we sowed three of these acres to wheat.
During the following winter my father hauled logs
to Eaton Rapids sawmill and gave half of them for
sawing the remainder. With these he built the first
frame barn near there and my sister Louisa taught,
in this barn, the first school in the east half of the
township.
' ' The following July my father cut the three acres
BENTON TOWNSHIP. 145
of wheat with a sickle and I bound and set it up.
The next day he cut an acre for a neighbor. He was
overheated and drank freely of water. This was his
last day's work. July 26, 1846, we buried him in
the wheatfield just harvested. My mother was now
a widow with seven children, eighty acres of land
and but seven of it cleared. My father was filling
the offices of justice of the peace and supervisor up
to the time of his death. The next day we drew our
wheat, threshed ten bushels of it with flails and I
was sent to Delta to mill with it. I slept in the mill
at night and returned the next day.
"We cleared the land and sowed ten acres of
wheat that fall and from it harvested nearly 400
bushels. One evening that same fall a man brought
word that a bear w^as killing Mrs. Jones' hog but
two miles north of us and asked that we boys should
go with our guns and lanterns while he went further
for a neighbor who had bear dogs. We reached the
farm and found the hog with a broken back and
from the barking dogs we knew the bear was not
far away. We killed the hog, shut up the dogs and
then drew the hog onto a bridge and hid ourselves
in a deep ravine where we could look up tow^ard the
sky and see bruin if he came upon the bridge. We
had not long to wait. My brother whispered, ''Now,
give it to him." We both fired at once. The bear
gave a jump and landed within six feet of us and
ran into a brush-heap. Soon the men arrived with
the bear dogs. These were let loose and the bear.
146 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
wounded so he could not run, killed one and another
was shot by a man trying to shoot the bear. A man
then approached within ten feet and shot the bear
in the head killing him. We sent for an ox team
and a stoneboat and the bear was drawn to our
home. The next day a feast was held and neighbors
came for a piece of the largest bear ever killed in
that region. He weighed over 400 pounds and it
was found that both our shots had pierced him
through. He had been a great scourge for many
miles around. Pork was more safely grown after
this.
''In 1847, the capitol was located at Lansing and
a band of ten surveyors were surveying an air line
road from Battle Creek to Lansing. They stopped
over night at our shanty, mother cooking for them.
They needed another man and offered twenty-five
cents a day and board. I, then fifteen years old, was
taken on. The fifth day we reached Lansing and
went down Washington avenue, which had simply
been underbrushed and that day we assisted in
raising the old capitol which was raised like a coun-
try barn. In the month of September of that year
I made another journey to Lansing under different
circumstances. My uncle, C. P. Sprague, and his
young wife, both teachers, came to Lansing. There
was no schoolhouse nor means for building one.
Five families in Eaton county, his relatives, volun-
teered to build him one and present it to him.
Samuel Preston, John Strange, George P. Carman,
BENTON TOWNSHIP. 147
W. H. Taylor and myself, representing my mother's
family, with axes and teams met in Lansing and in
ten days had completed a two story schoolhouse and
residence. There my Uncle Cor. and wife lived and
taught the first school in Lansing.
''In the spring of 1848, jobs were let for building
the State road to Lansing that I had helped to sur-
vey. I, then sixteen, secured a contract to build
eighty rods for which I was to receive $250 in State
script. I sold $100 of this for $20 and with the
balance located 120 acres of Michigan land. While
building this and resting one day at noon, three deer
approached and ran, as I thought, into a clump of
brush. I fired my gun in the direction and had the
misfortune to kill my mother's only cow. The beef
was saved but my mother and seven children were
without milk for two years thereafter. During the
winter of 1848-49, we cut twenty acres of timber and
burned most of it to ashes for black salts sold to
make saleratus.
''When gold was discovered in California, I was
seventeen years old and eager to go but mother and
George thought I was too young but three years
later they assisted me in raising the needed money
for the overland journey."
Such the early story of Ed. Potter in Eaton
County.
148 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATOiN^ COUNTY.
Let US for a moment watcli the inspiring career of
George N. Potter. Left at eighteen years the finan-
cial head of his mother's large family, at twenty he
had preempted forty acres for himself, slashed
do^vn the timber, burned it to ashes and sold black-
salts to more than pay for it all. At twenty-one
married and living in his own neat log house. At
twenty-nine he was elected sheriff of the county and
later provost marshal and finally elected to a seat in
the State Senate.
In 1866, he brought the first circular sawmill into
the county at a cost of $3,300. It was guaranteed to
cut 10,000 feet a day. Neighbors said George was
a fool to believe it as the best mills cut but 3,000.
The first day it ran it cut 10,600 and the second
day 14,600. In ninety-one days it had paid for itself
and put $600 in George's pocket, and lumber upon
the farms of patrons for miles around. His four
younger brothers, then in Minnesota, bought a port-
able mill and the rapid acquirement of wealth by the
Potter family had begun. With the portable mill a
new era da^vned upon Benton and Eaton County.
Instead of the land encumbered to a depth of a
hundred feet with rubbish that must be burned, it
was found that the first crop of timber was worth
many times more than any succeeding crop.
Of this pioneer family of seven children, the
youngest, James W., is the only survivor. He is
the donor of Potter Park to the City of Lansing.
BROOKFIELD TOWNSHIP
Previous to 1836 there had been no government
land purchased in Brookfield but in that year there
were forty-one purchases. Perhaps the younger
generation are not aware that more land in Michigan
was purchased in 1836 than in all the years preced-
ing and for many years thereafter. The reasons for
this are easily found. Detroit had been settled more
than a century. The flat lying lands for thirty
miles back of it were under water part of the year
and for the rest of the time seemed bottomless mud.
Statements had been published far and wide that
there was scarcely an acre in Michigan upon w^hich
a horse could stand. About 1830 a few settlers had
penetrated to the rolling lands of Oakland and
Washtenaw. They had proved the fertility of the
soil and had sent glowing reports back to their east-
ern friends. From the abundance of money (such
as it was) the little grain or pork that they produced
brought almost fabulous prices. These glowing re-
ports bore fruit in 1836. Immigration was at flood
tide. Three men could organize and call themselves
a bank and could issue unlimited floods of their
notes. Their value was questioned and inspectors
were sent to investigate. Kegs of silver were sent
just in advance of the inspectors. They found and
reported abundance of silver in the first bank. While
149
150 PIO]^EEE HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
they were eating dinner tlie silver was sent ahead to
the next bank and so around. In 1837 came the in-
evitable collapse. Banks closed and their managers
disappeared. ''Eed-dog" and ''wildcat" currency-
was now in the hands of the pioneers and was of no
value whatever. Of real money there was none.
Business was at a standstill. No one could meet his
promises nor purchase necessities. Immigration
nearly ceased.
However fertile the fields of Brookfield of today
they were not attractive to the pioneers. Narrow
Lake and wider swamps separated the drier por-
tions by impassable barriers. If settlers in the
east came in through Spicerville and in the west
through Bellevue they might have lived for years
knowing naught of the presence of each other.
The first settlers were said to have been Peter
Moe and his sons, Ezra and Henry, and John Boody
in the northeast corner in 1837. Moetown was the
name given this corner. Jesse Hart came the same
year to the northwest corner. Five years later he
became the first supervisor. He relates many inter-
esting experiences. He started from Summit
County, Ohio, on the 10th of October with two yoke
of oxen on a light wagon. Said he w^orked hard
eight days to pass thirty-two miles of the black
swamp. He reached the end of all roads at Joseph
Bosworth's on the 6th of November and still four
miles from his land. He left his bride at Bosworth's
shanty and the tv\^o men together cut a path to his
BROOKFIELD TOWNSHIP. 151
land and began a shanty upon it. When he had
half the roof on and a door cut, but no door nor
floor, he moved in with his new wife. He wrote
that, "The first night we made our bed on some
split pieces of basswood in a corner of the shanty,
built a fire in another corner, hung up a blanket for
a door and same around the bed and it seemed quite
like home. ' '
They lived in that shanty the two happiest years
of their lives and here their first child was born,
March 20, 1839. The following fall they built a log
house.
Mr. Hart, so near the swamp, had interesting
stories of bear killings when bruin ventured among
his hogs. In 1842 he built the first frame barn in
Brookfield and in 1851, a new frame house out on
the road and he adds, ''For there were roads laid
out then."
In the meantime Moetown received acquisitions
of J. S. Moe, J. Otely, and J. E. Fisher. S. S. Bly,
C. Kintner, E. P. Stewart and Amos Carrier were
early settlers.
I quote as follows from J. C. Sherman as pub-
lished in The Charlotte Republican in 1869:
' ' In the year 1839 Charles R. Sherman moved into
the town and settled on the eastern bank of Battle
Creek. He got his goods as far as John Boody's
as there was a passable road from Jackson that
far, but further there was none. He got Mr. Boody
and his boys to take his ox sled, load on a few goods
152 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATOF COUNTY.
and draw them down to the swamp ; then they had
to unyoke the oxen, draw the sled over by hand, and
drive the oxen a long way up the swamp until they
could find a fording place, wallow them through, and
go down the other side to where the sled was.
They were then ready to yoke up the oxen and
start again on their journey, clearing a road as they
went. Drawing the balance of the things across
the swamp on a hand sled and then two miles further
with a team, he finally got settled, the big swamp
on one side and the creek on the other. The nearest
gristmill or store was at Eaton Rapids and he could
only get there in winter, when the swamp was frozen
over. ' '
Peter Williams came in 1841 and claimed the
honor of having the first temperance raising in
town and also the first shingle roof although it was
but a log house.
As in every township most of the early purchasers
were speculators who never settled here but of the
forty-one who purchased land here in 1836, seven
became settlers: J. Boody, P. Moe, H. Moe, B.
Knight, C. Kenter, J. P. Woodbury and H. C. Whit-
tum. The last of these when twenty-two years of
age, was living at Phelps, New York. He earned
$250 quarrying lime-stone with pickaxe and wheel-
barrow; with this money he started to locate a
future home in the wilds of Michigan. Taking
canal boat to Buffalo, he there boarded a lake boat
for Toledo and walked through the woods to Brook-
BROOKFIELD TOWNSHIP. 153
field township where he located a quarter of section
10 and then walked to the land office at Ionia which
he found closed for two weeks and the agent away
on a vacation. He and another young man, who was
on the same errand, took a job freighting twenty-five
barrels of flour to Grand Rapids. They felled the
trees and built a raft for the purpose, loaded the
flour and "polled" it down the river to their destina-
tion and walked back to Ionia and succeeded in
making the entry. He then walked back to Toledo
and took the boat for his return home. The patent
for this land which still remains in the family, was
signed by Martin Van Buren, November 2, 1837,
and is still in a good state of preservation. Mr.
Whittum did not return to settle here until twenty-
five years later when he brought his wife and eight
children, four of whom are still living (1923) one
of them the wife of J. Sumner Hamlin of Eaton
Rapids.
The first schoolhouse in town was built of logs
and near the residence of Nicholas Boody. For a
number of years this was the only public building
in town and was used for town meetings, etc. The
first school in town was taught by Roxana Skinner
in 1841. The first marriage in town was B. B.
Snyder to Sarah Moe.
Mr. Sherman gives a very amusing account of
the marriage of one Wickwire to Margaret Boody.
The groom thought he had no suitable clothes for
the ceremony. He tried to borrow but the best of-
154 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
fered were dilapidated shoes and a worn chip hat.
He said he thought it a d — d poor town where a
man could not borrow clothes to get married in.
Esquire Rose was asked to perform the ceremony.
At first he declined because of inexperience, but
his wife, anxious that he should make his official
mark, urged him to attempt the task. He prepared a
fitting ceremony in mind but, case in hand, it fled
his memory utterly. He turned red, then pale, stam-
mered and finally told the groom he must get some-
one else as he could not go on. The plighted couple
could not consent to this. They arranged a cere-
mony and the groom lined it for the justice who
repeated it line by line successfully. The bride was
so overjoyed at this happy turn in affairs that she
threw her arms about the affrighted justice and
gave him a rousing smack for doing it so nicely.
Another good justice story is that of John Boody.
Austin Blair, the future war Governor of Michigan,
was engaged to defend a prisoner before him.
Papers were illegally drawn and Blair demanded
the prisoner's release. Boody dissented. Blair
then told the prisoner he could go as those papers
could not hold him. **Vot ish dat?" shouted the
'Squire, "You tell dat prisoner he can go! Py tam,
Mr. Blair, you let dat prisoner go and I sends a
bench warrant for him and you too, so sure as Got. ' '
Four of John Boody 's little children, two boys
and two girls, were hunting leeks and became lost in
the woods in the spring of 1840. When night came
BROOKFIELD TOWNSHIP. 155
they crept into a hollow log and remained there the
entire next day as it was snowing fast. Neighbors
searched in vain and finally built numerous fires at
night thinking they might attract the children. Sure
enough, on the morning of the third day, the chil-
dren were found by one of the fires where they had
spent the night.
Surrounded by swamps the settlers of Brookfield
suffered much from depredations of bears and
wolves. They had exciting experiences in extermi-
nating these pests but space forbids their repeti-
tion.
The township was organized by act of the legis-
lature approved March 20, 1841, and in 1842 town-
ship records relate it was ''Resolved that geese,
hens, hogs (with the exception of boars), be free
cominers, waying over forty weight for the year
1842."
By the State census of 1844 there were thirty-
three taxpayers in town. If their taxes were small,
the numbers paying taxes approached those in more
favored towns.
Jesse Hart was eleven times elected supervisor,
alternating with G. W. Knight and Pardon H.
Fisher. In 1879 and '80, our own George A. Perry,
for so many years the very efficient Secretary of
our Pioneer Society, was elected supervisor of
Brookfield township.
WINDSOR TOWNSHIP
The last township in the county, save one, to re-
ceive permanent settlers was Windsor, not because
of unattractive land as is shown by the fact that
there were sixty-three purchases here in the year
1836, but due rather to its remoteness from the earl-
ier settlements. One historian relates that the early
pioneers of Windsor seemed to have greater hard-
ships in their battle with the wilderness than the
inhabitants of any other township in the county. I
think this cannot hold true. While they had some
perilous incidents I would award the palm for hard-
ships to those who settled the swamps of Brookfield
or the remote forests of Delta. Even this historian
when he began to tell of the hardships of Windsor
told them of Delta settlers and his story ran as fol-
lows: In November, 1836, before Windsor had a
settler within its limits, a Mr. Lewis and Mr. Bill-
ings started to cross the township on their way to
Ingersoll's on Grand River. They had a train of
two wagons drawn by two yoke of oxen and fol-
lowed by two cows. They reached the ''Old Maid's
Swamp ' ' which centered near where the four towns
of Oneida, Delta, Windsor and Benton corner to-
gether. Here they became lost and Mr. Billings
left them to search for help. He was gone two days
without success. He started again and on the sec-
156
WINDSOK TOWNSHIP. 157
ond day he heard a cowbell which led him to Inger-
solPs. A party started to rescue the bewildered
ones and after several days rescued them. Their
hardships were such that Mrs. Lewis died soon
afterward. Her daughter prepared her for burial.
A wagon box was cut up for a coffin and Mr. Bur-
nett (afterward of Windsor) dug her grave.
When one man cuts his path through miles of
trackless forest and there erects his shanty with
no neighbors for miles around and others follow his
trail but a few weeks later the first is entitled to all
credit as a ''first settler." But when two or three
parties come in from different directions, each cut-
ting his own trail and each believing he has no
neighbors but wild Indians, all are entitled to like
credit as pioneers. The first settlers in Windsor
were Orange Towslee and Nathan Pray, coming by
different routes, both settled there in October, 1837,
Towslee upon the first day of the month coming by
way of Delta, following the Billings trail, then cut-
ting new road three miles. For six weeks his fam-
ily lived in a tent while a house was building. He
started one Friday morning for Spicerville to pur-
chase lumber for his house. He found no one at
home and started back, losing his way he wandered
in the woods until Monday, arriving home he was
so nearly worn out that his family were frightened
at sight of him. In November he was on his way
home from Delta, night coming on he was again lost
and stumbled into a creek up to his arms. Wolves
158 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATOIsT COUNTY.
were howling all around and thinking himself safer
there he remained standing in that water all that
cold November night. When he reached home the
next morning his voice failed to produce a sound.
Some hardship ! Yes, that will pass with the worst
of them.
Nathan H. Pray was married in the spring of
1837 in Washtenaw County and in the following-
October he moved into Windsor with his bride of
eighteen years coming by way of Jackson, Spicer-
ville and Wall Settlement. From Wall's he cut his
road to Boody's place in Eaton Rapids. Although
Mr. Pray's land lay three miles beyond, across a
swamp impassable by team, he unloaded his goods
at Boody's shanty and the team returned. With
aid of a hired man he built a shanty on his place
and drew his household goods there on a hand-sled.
On the ninth of March, 1838, their son Esek was
born, the first 'Svhite" child born in the township.
While hunting his cows in the woods Mr. Pray be-
came lost and *' whooped" until his hired men came
to his rescue. They laughed heartily at his getting
lost but their laughter soon turned when they
learned they were all lost and remained in the woods
until the morrow.
In this same October, 1837, Oramel D., John D.,
and W. P. Skinner arrived in Windsor and built a
house and afterward cut a road to Spicerville but,
by the logic of the pioneers, they were not "settled"
as their families did not come until the following
WINDSOR TOWNSHIP. 159
spring. None of these three parties knew of the
presence of another but supposed themselves to be
the only settlers in the town.
In the fall of 1837, three single men, Samuel
Munn, Charles Wright and Andy Mills, arrived and
took up abode with Mr. Towslee. In the spring of
1838, T. C. Cogswell arrived, following the trail cut
by Mr. Pray but his land was three miles further in
and to this he cut his road.
Mr. A. Torrey with a large family reached here
in the spring of 1839. John Courter settled in the
spring of 1839. Kobert McRedfield settled here in
1841.
John D. Skinner returned with his wife in March,
1838, but as the sleighing was poor he drove from
Eaton Rapids upon the ice in the river. This was
rotten and he had many hair breadth escapes, and
avoided the river ever after. Charles Hinckley and
Albert McKinley, returning from town meeting in
the evening found the ice so rotten they crossed by
each taking three poles and keeping upon two,
pushed one ahead at a time. McKinley finally broke
through and was badly wetted and worse frightened.
Mr. Courter moved in from Delta assisted by Mr.
Tow^slee when the water was high. Coming to a
swollen creek he asked Mrs. Courter how she could
cross as the water was mid-side to his oxen. She
asked, ''How did you cross this morning?" He
replied, '*I rode an ox." Then she said, ''I, too.
160 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
shall ride an ox," and so she did but said it was a
difficult matter to keep her feet above water.
Many interesting stories of bear killings were re-
called but wolf bowlings were so constant by night
as to excite but little attention.
Seed wheat cost two dollars a bushel but the crop
grown brought but thirty cents.
George P. Carman from Cayuga County, New
York, settled in Eaton County with his wife and
son, H. Matson* (then three years old), in 1844, but
first built in Benton near the east line. As soon
as the State road was laid from Charlotte to Lan-
sing he built the first house upon this road and for
some time it was the only occupied house between
these two terminals. The first mail over this road
was in 1849 and Mr. Carman kept the postoffice in
his house for seven years and after a brief period
for seven more. For a time the mail was carried
three times a week upon the back of a mule but later
a daily stage carried the mail. Mr. Carman was
six times elected supervisor.
In 1850, Isaac H. Dimond began damming Grand
River and building a mill. His dam was partially
destroyed several times and both the saw mill and
the grist mill were at times partially undermined.
The grist mill was not built until 1856, and at that
time he platted a village and named it Dimondale.
The mills were later acquired bv A. C. Bruin and
^See page 164.
WINDSOR TOWNSHIP. 161
later still by E. W. Hunt who finally built a larger
grist mill which proved more successful.
Children were often lost in the wilds and swamps
of Windsor as well as in other townships. Neigh-
bors for many miles around would join in the
search. A noted case that excited the whole county
was that of a small child of Charles Wright of
Windsor. The child became lost while on his way
from school. Two published accounts, differing
somewhat in detail, are before me. One says he
was five, the other that he was six years old. Both
agree that two hundred fifty men from several
townships joined in the search. One says at dusk
of the third day, the other says after five full days'
search, the child was found alive but badly frozen.
The toes of one foot were entirely lost with partial
loss of the others. They had previously found his
cap two miles from the schoolhouse and found nests
where he had slept. He was found in the midst of a
willow swamp and by T. E. Potter of Benton.
Freezings were not common when sheltered by
forests from the biting winds but the ''cold New
Year's" of 1864 brought frost bites to many and
death to some. A grown son of Robert McRedfield
lost all his toes from freezing on that day.
At that time I was teaching the school in the Pray
district. On New Year's morn I started to walk
to my home fifteen miles away. I walked three
miles to Uncle George Carman's in comfort, while
in the lee of the forest, but upon reaching the open
162 PIONEER HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY,
field I froze both hands and face but not seriously
although the piercing wind was a gale or hurricane.
I spent the day at Uncle George's and there saw
what he said he had heard of but never believed —
icicles forming in the open fireplace. The explana-
tion is simple. We would bring in sticks of green
wood at a temperature twenty-five below zero and
partially covered with snow. Exposed to the flames
the snow soon melted but running over sticks at this
temperature it froze at once into icicles to again
thaw out somewhat later. If any doubt this, try it
yourself in a log house with open fireplace with
green fuel on a similar day.
The Township of Windsor was organized on the
same day as three other townships in the county,
Delta, Eaton Eapids and Sunfield, March 16, 1842,
and these were the last ones organized except Benton
and Roxand the following year.
John D. Skinner was the first supervisor and was
six times elected to this office as was George P. Car-
man and Edmund Lewis. W. H. Taylor held the
office two terms. Nathan H, Pray was supervisor
in 1847, and twenty-two years later his son Esek
attained the office and held it ten consecutive years
and only retired to become county treasurer. Esek
Pray's sons are now prominent in the county and
well known throughout the State as are the other
grandsons of Nathan H. Pray.
At my last visit with Esek Pray, a short time be-
fore his demise, he related the following incident
WINDSOR TOWNSHIP. 163
^ illustrating the practice of early postmasters and
the vicissitudes of pioneer life. A near neighbor
came to my father and said to him, *'Mr. Preston
has sent me word there is a letter in the office for me
and twenty-five cents postage due on it. I haven't
got twenty-five cents and I don't know who in this
country has it unless you have it, Mr. Pray. If you
have it I will gladly cradle a full day in harvest
field for it." The offer was accepted. He worked
faithfully from sunrise until sunset, received the
twenty-five cents and next day walked the sixteen
miles to the postoffice, secured the letter and walked
the sixteen miles back to his home for his wife to
read the letter to him.
A Golden "Wedding.
(Written for the Golden Wedding of Hiram Matson Carman
and iMary (iSQi'otiwell) Carman, March 8, 1905.)
This golden day impresses me as others have not done.
We've met before to greet old age. This time we greet our own.
E'en Uncle John, twelve years ago, could tell of courting days
With yoke of steers on long ox sled, and all those early ways.
But Mat was wed in modern times. (To me it seems that way.)
This golden day impresses me, we're growing old today.
In early life we caught a glimpse, and now I ^ive it voice,
Of simple life our fathers led ere Mat and I were boys.
When Mat and I were little boys, how long ago it seems;
The wondrous changes time has wrought seem like our mystic
dreams.
There were no telephones at all and scarce a telegraph.
And if one told of railroad cars old men would simply laugh.
They had no carpets on their floors nor any cooking stoves;
They cooked around an open fire and turned the baking loaves.
When Mat and I were boys.
The schoolhouse was a small log room with desks against the
wall;
And here they held their Sunday school, prayer meetings,
church and all,
And our great farms were forests then with clearings very
small ;
The roads were merely winding paths, sometimes no path at all.
Charlotte was a prairie wild; at Lansing all was woods;
They drove ox teams to Jackson then, to trade their eggs for
goods,
When Mat and I were boys.
We've lived the long allotted life the scriptures give to men;
A hurried life or worried life of three score years and ten.
Our childhood knew none of the toys that childhood now enjoys;
No picture slides nor auto glides when Mat and I were boys.
But childhood had its pleasures then as really true as ours,
We waded brooks and climbed the trees and gathered wild-wood
flowers.
A yoke of calves, tame deer and lamb and pup obeyed each whim,
Mat had more joy than he could tell if Mary smiled at him,
When Mat and I were boys.
164
CARMEL TOWNSHIP
The twin Townships of Eaton and Carmel,
though bound like the Siamese twins by the liga-
ment of Charlotte, are, by my simple system of
treating the townships in the order of their earliest
settlement, brought a long way apart. The earliest
settlement in the county, outside of Bellevue, was by
Samuel and Jonathan Searls, at the southeast cor-
ner of Charlotte prairie in October, 1835. The latest
township of all to acquire a first settler was Carmel.
Still in point of actual time they were not so far
severed — almost exactly two years apart. Still in
that eventful two years each of the other towns had
acquired its first inhabitant — eight of them in 1836
and six in 1837.
Carmel, the latest of them, was not unattractive
to pioneers or speculators as is witnessed by the
fact that purchases from the government were made
here in 1832, '33, '34, eight purchases in '35 and
thirty-nine in 1836.
Who was the first settler? And again we meet
that ever recurring problem, when is an unsettled
man settled. The first to begin improvements in
Carmel was Piatt Morey in autumn, 1837, but, un-
fortunately, he was a single man and by pioneer's
logic he could by no possibility be ** settled" until
married. This happy event occurred two years
165
166 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
later wlien lie married a niece of Bezaleel Taft, an
early pioneer of Vermontville. The first to settle
with his family was Nathan Brooks who also became
the first supervisor of Carmel. William Webster
was an early settler but was accidentally killed soon
after. Robert Dunn was an early settler and out-
lived nearly all others.
The venerable John E. Ells, a soldier of 1812, and
his son, Almon C. Ells, were early settlers here.
They became respectively the grandfather and the
father of Frank A. Ells, the highly esteemed and
efficient editor of The Charlotte Leader.
William Johnson, distinguished as Blacksmith
Johnson, married a sister of A. C Ells and resided
in turn in Charlotte and in Carmel.
The history of Carmel is closely bound up with
that of Charlotte, many settlers having resided in
both. H. H. Gale and his brother-in-law, R. T.
Cushing, were early residents in Carmel. Town
meetings were held in Charlotte.
Alvan D. Shaw, afterward very prominent in
Eaton County, was an early resident of Carmel and
left recorded some amusing incidents. He settled in
Carmel February 20, 1840, and I copy his state-
ment:
''When the day of annual town meeting came we
thought we ought to attend. Early in the morning
we all started for what was then called Hyde's Mills
in Kalamo. "When we got there we were told that
we did not belong with them at all; that our town
CAKMEL TOWNSHIP. 167
had been set off and organized by itself. We were
then in a dilemma. We did not know the name of
our town nor the place of meeting. We knew that
Daniel Barber of Vermontville was our represen-
tative in the legislature. We clubbed together and
raised a dollar and hired a boy to go to Vermontville
and see Mr. Barber. Anxious for the dollar the boy
pulled off his hat, coat, shoes and stockings. With
head up he ran through the woods and in two hours
returned with a line from Mr. Barber stating our
township had been organized and named Carmel
and told the place of meeting. We returned to the
designated house and found it to be a low shanty
covered with split hollow logs. I had to take the
taller side of the shanty in order to stand erect.
We then made a ballot box, prepared our ballots,
and organized the board. Between two and three
o'clock we began voting. Every elector in town
voted — eighteen in all. We closed the polls, counted
the votes and made report as required by statute
and reached home late in the evening. ' '
Mr. Shaw was afterward county commissioner
several times, township supervisor and in 1844-45
county clerk.
Other early residents were Henry J. Robinson,
A. B. Waterman, James Mann, John Jessup, Harvey
Williams, M. E. Andrews, James Foster, Thomas
Cooper, H. Whitehouse, J. P. Herrick, H. M. Mun-
son, J. E. Sweet, Eli Spencer, A. C. H. Maxon, Abel
P. Case.
168 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
In 1844 there were forty-one resident taxpayers.
Early records of the township have been lost but
after 1845, E. T. Gushing, A. D. Shaw, A. C. Ells
and T. D. Green alternated as supervisors.
Families living in the east part sent their chil-
dren to Charlotte to school but about 1841, five or
six families living near the center organized district
No. 1.
/ The modes of life and labor of the pioneers were
much the same as that of their ancestors for many
generations. The same tallow candles by night and
the same homespun clothes by day. The inventions
of the nineteenth century, more than the develop-
men of the county displaced all their modes and
practices.
Cook stoves were entirely unknown to the early
settlers in Eaton County. Their introduction revo-
lutionized their culinary practices. Sewing ma-
chines came during the Civil War and wrought a
revolution in ''the other room," for shanties had
then passed and the log house had two or three
rooms besides the sleeping loft.
Railroads came into the county at this time and
brought manufactured products from distant cities.
The spinning wdieel and the flax wheel were rele-
gated to the garret and looms banished from our
homes. The local blacksmith no longer made our
hoes, forks and axes while farmers made their
handles. Cast plows had been purchased in the
CARMEL TOWNSHIP. 169
rougli but farmers made and fitted beams and
handles.
The decade of the Civil War brought more changes
to our homes and farms and their management than
any other decade, perhaps than any other half cen-
tury. The portable mill with its circle saw revolu-
tionized our practice with our forests. Farmers no
longer made with tedious labor their rakes, scythe-
snaths and cradles. Neither are they making their
own bedsteads, tables and chairs. Railroads brought
these from distant cities. They also brought mow-
ers, reapers, drills for sowing, and planting ma-
chines, thus liberating half of the farmers' sons to
go to the cities to produce, with the aid of steam, the
thousand comforts we never had before.
Rough shoes are no longer made by our fireside,
but elegant attire is made by machines at one hun-
dredth part the labor cost but at perhaps twenty
times the cash price. Nine days to go to mill has
now become as many minutes. Twenty-five cents
postage and a day's walk to post a letter which
might require four weeks to reach its destination
now requires even fewer seconds by wireless.
Long live the memory of the pioneers, their hard-
ships and privations in paving the way for our lux-
urious living, but let us not forget their hopeful
content and happiness. One venerable lady assured
me they had no hardships. They always had plenty
of vegetables, abundant fresh meat was procured
at any time within an hour, abundance of cranberries
170 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
and huckleberries were here before us. Indians
brought them to our door to exchange for potatoes.
A little later there were plenty of blackberries and
raspberries. Of course canning was unknown but
we always had abundance of them dried. Hard-
ships, she had known none. But a little later she
recalled that she once rode on an ox sled in summer
time, upon the leaves and mud, fifty miles to mill
and to exchange eighteen pounds of butter for six
of cheapest tumblers ever made that she might not
be compelled to offer a drink of water to a stranger
in a teacup. She recalled too, that when married in
October she had but two pounds of butter but, as
they had a fat pig and would soon have lard, she de-
termined that butter should last them until the ^ ' cow
came in next spring." No hardships! No, indeed, .
but let us revere their happy spirit of content ! /
In my graduating essay in 1867, I paid some
tribute to the progress of the nineteenth century —
greater progress in material things and in scientific
research than in all the preceding centuries. I
questioned whether we had not nearly reached the
limit of possible advancement.
I lived to see greater progress in the remaining
one-third of the century than in all that preceded.
I once knew the exact number of the chemical
elements, sixty-one, and there could be no more. A
score have since been discovered and now we know
not that there are any elements. The science that I
learned was but a figment of the fancy. Medical
CARMEL TOWNSHIP. 171
books of ten years ago are but a mass of errors.
Science is revolutionized.
We liave now seen but a score of years of the
twentietli century but in discovery of means of
destruction, in methods of production and in scien-
tific research we have gone further than in any pre-
ceding century. The possible attainments and
achievements of even the next ten years are beyond
the conception of man.
ADDENDA
An Addeess
To John Strange and Other Pioneers of Oneida.
Upon the fifth of October, 1886, 1 gave the follow-
ing address to my father and other pioneers on the
fiftieth anniversary of his arrival upon the land
that became his future home :
We assemble at this time to commemorate an
eventful day in my father's life, to celebrate the
anniversary of fifty years of the history of Oneida,
to recall the early events of that history and to
reflect upon the wondrous changes which these
sturdy pioneers have helped to bring about in this
wonderful age in which we live.
To all of you, then, hardy pioneers, who forsook
the homes of your youth and the privileges of
society to penetrate this limitless wilderness, hoping
to provide better homes and privileges for your
yet unborn children and grandchildren, to you who
suffered the cares, privations and hardships which
only pioneers of your day could suffer and endure,
I extend, in the name of your posterity, our congrat-
ulations and our thanks, and the words I address
to my father I speak to you, one and all.
Fifty years ago this evening you, with Uncle
George, Peter Kent and Mr. Groger, might have
173
174 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
been seen wending your way directly southward
near where our church now stands, with no path-
way within miles of you except the blazed trees
of the government survey. Fifty years ago this
night you encamped on the land which has since
been your own. With the rising sun of the morn
you encompassed this square mile of land which
you then selected. Peter Kent chose the two half
sections between which he had last passed before
reaching this. Other land had been taken in the
township by speculators, but this is believed to be
the first land located in town by those who became
actual settlers. It certainly is the first located
still owned and occupied by the prospector who
selected it in the midst of a howling wilderness fifty
years ago. Thus you are the first visitor who be-
came a permanent settler and who still remains,
and you are perhaps the only man living who had
set foot in Oneida fifty years ago. Others, who
are still your neighbors, located land in town the
self-same week and the history of civilization in
Oneida begins with this time. After making your
selection of land you returned by the same route
you came, crossing Grand River and reaching the
nearest house, ten miles distant, in Eagle, at 3
o 'clock in the afternoon and then partook of the first
meal you had tasted since the morning of the day
before. Thus you began your history here.
You wisely took a vacation of one and a half
years before making permanent settlement, and
AN ADDRESS TO PIONEEES. 175
meantime neighbors had preceded you. Solomon
Russell, cutting his way from the north through
eight miles of trackless wilderness and settling on
his land one mile north of this, was the first in
town to erect a habitation. Fifty years ago next
March Uncle Samuel Preston coming in but a few
days after Mr. Russell and, cutting his path through
eight miles of forest from the nearest settlement in
the southwest and settling a half mile west of here,
believed himself the first settler until some weeks
later he learned of his neighbor Russell.
Canada settlement was formed but a few weeks
later, in early springtime 1837, by Uncle "Walker
Nichols and his boys — yes, the boys — we call them
uncle now, (three of them have gone to their long
home and three remain, are with us still, with their
children, their grandchildren — aye, and their great
grandchildren, — so rapidly do the generations pass,
so long a time is half a century) and the Nixon
boys, four brothers. Uncle Robert, James and John
and Uncle Sam (now just two-thirds the age of his
great namesake) and in a few short weeks they
can celebrate the semi-centennial of their perma-
nent settlement here and the unbroken band of
brothers yet remains, and three of them still own
the land on which they first settled fifty years ago.
"V\^ien a year later, in June, 1838, you returned
to settle permanently here and when, on the first
Sunday you spent in town, you attended religious
meeting at Mr. Huckins' house, where Mr. Brunger
176 PIONEEE HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
now lives, although barefooted and clad only with
homespun shirt and pants, you were respectably
dressed and cordially welcomed by the new neigh-
bors among whom you have now dwelt so long and
so many of whom you have long outlived.
A lone bachelor; for two years you boarded with
Uncle Samuel Preston and one of the most import-
ant events, in all this history, to you — and certainly
to me — is that there you met his wife's sister and
forty-six years ago you joined her in holy matri-
mony. Thirty-six years ago your fourth and young-
est child was born. An anniversary day indeed is
this to you and yours.
It is not a great or remarkable thing to live for
fifty years, but when a man who has already reached
half of the allotted span of life forsakes all the
scenes and ties of his youth and early manhood,
journeys to a distant realm, and there takes up
a new mode of life and there abides for fifty years
and thus outlives all that he had known before and
all the modes of life and labor which before were
known, it is indeed remarkable. This fifty years has
brought to you, we almost say, a new life. Not a
person, a place or scarce a thing that you had seen
before fifty years ago will you ever see again. It
is to you a new world, and how different is the
world from that in which your youth was spent.
The pioneer of one or two hundred years ago,
who settled in the then wild-wood of New England
or New York, and who there lived for fifty years.
AN ADDRESS TO PIOXEERS. 177
left his grandchildren dwelling in the same kind
of house, enjoying the same kind of comforts,
toiling with the same kind of tools, learning at the
same labored length the same round of r's that
his grandfathers had learned and known before him.
The pioneer of today is not a pioneer. He follows
w^estward in the wake of the railway and the tele-
graph. He settles on the plains and turns the virgin
sod with steam ; he speaks in the telephone and talks
with friends a thousand miles behind; he finds the
comforts and the luxuries of civilization on the plain
and in the hills before him. You have lived in the
transition period. In the first half of your life you
were familiar with the modes and manners which
had prevailed for ages. You have lived to see the
most marvelous era of discovery and invention,
perhaps, that the world will ever know. As the
sixteenth century will ever be remembered for its
wondrous intellectual awakening, so will the last
half century through which you have lived be cele-
brated through all time for its marvelous material
PROGRESS.
The farm house of fifty years ago had doors and
floors of boards not sawed but riven from the body
of the tree, and the roof sometimes of shakes and
sometimes of bark. It often consisted of but a
single room in which large families were reared,
and where there was always room to lodge the
stranger. The only fireplace, if built of bricks in-
stead of mud and sticks, was of the better class.
178 PIONEEE HISTOEY OF EATON COUNTY.
For more than half your life your food was cooked
by the open fireplace, while the cook stove is of
so recent origin I well remember the first one ever
brought to this town; in fact it is still in use.
Fifty years ago the farmer raised the hemp and
flax, which, as well as wool, was spun and woven by
his wife and daughters; thus all their clothes were
made unless, in their excess of pride, some garments
of boughten but hand-printed calico were added to
the trousseau ; and so near did that era of domestic
simplicity and industry reach to the present time
that I well remember in my own joyous courting
visits I wore the pantaloons my mother's hand had
carded and spun and cut and made, while a kindly
neighbor did the weaving and I took the cloth, on
horseback, to Portland to have it fulled (a finish
fitting for a dude, had that creature in that day
been created). If the farmer did not make his own
shoes they were made in his house, both upon the
same last, and by the shoemaker who took his pay
in pork and corn.
All these domestic industries are now well nigh
forgotten. The sewing machine, invented five years
after you came here and now found in the homes of
the poorest, has exceeded the fondest hopes of the
inventor and has given to our daughters literary
societies and library associations in place of the
old-time spinning and sewing contests, while the
myriads of applications of steam machinery now
supply our homes with a hundred things which you
AN ADDRESS TO PIONEEES, 179
were wont to carve by hand, and with thousands of
toys, trinkets and useful tools which were not
dreamed of in your philosophies of fifty years ago.
As long as you retained your strength to toil you
mowed your grass, spread it in the sun, raked it
by hand and pitched it away as it had been done for
generations before you. You have lived to see
all this labor a thing of the past. The horse now
does the cutting and spreading, the raking and pitch-
ing, and already the shrill scream of the steam
engine is heard as it comes with heated breath to
distance the horse and displace all his methods : cut-
ting the green grass and packing it away in the silo,
turning the sod, acres in a day, and threshing in a
single day the many hundred bushels of grain which
would have given labor to man the long winter
through but fifty years ago.
You brought with you here the sickle your father
USED. I well remember seeing you with it, bending
your weary back and gathering the golden grain.
You lived to see the invention of the turkey-wing,
and the many more modern crooked handled cradles,
and you have lived to see them all displaced succes-
sively by the reaper, self-rake and dropper. Marsh
harvester, and that triumph of agricultural imple-
ments, the twine binding harvester. But more
wonderful still, you have lived to see the farmer re-
mould THE VERY animals the Creator had given him ;
to change the sheep's fleece, within your own re-
membrance, from two pounds two ounces to twenty
180 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
times that amount. You have seen the hog devel-
oped from an animal that ' * could clear a five-barred
gate at a bound" into one which seems to need
scarcely more than to be encased in staves to be
transformed into a tub of lard. You have seen the
draft horse developed to a weight of more than a
ton, while the driving horse, the most beautiful of
created animals, has been taught to forsake his
natural gait for the more graceful trot and at this to
acquire a speed of a mile in two minutes and six
seconds. The ox has been bred to take on the un-
natural weight of 4,000 pounds. The marvelous
cow of fifty years ago yielded a pound of butter per
day. The improved cow now yields over 14,000
pounds of milk per annum, from which over 850
pounds of butter can be made or over 25 pounds of
butter in a single week,* while the grasping Yankee,
not contented with this, makes oleomargarine from
her carcass and butterine from the butchered pig.
Other industries are no less active. You have
seen lumber cut with a whipsaw, by one man stand-
ing beneath the log and another on top. A modern
Michigan mill of not uncommon size has cut 442,000
feet in eleven hours — 40,000 feet per hour. Fifty
years ago the wagon-maker would fell an oak tree
for his timber and with his hands construct every
part of a wagon, using his foot only to aid in turn-
*These were the best records in 1886. The speed record has
been diminished and the milk record marvelously increased.
AX ADDRESS TO PIONEERS. 181
ing out the hubs. Today a modern factory turns out
seventeen wagons per day and not one of the numer-
ous workmen employed could make a wagon, and
scores contribute to a single wheel. Clothes-pins
were unknown and unnecessary to fasten clothes to
the pole on which Mary Jane, way down the lane,
hung our childhood clothes a drying. Today a log,
weighing a full ton, is drawn into a mill and in
twenty minutes the whole of it is transformed into
clothes-pins, saving only the saw-dust and shavings
and these suffice to furnish fuel to feed the flames to
furnish force sufficient for the factory. But why
multiply illustrations of improved mechanical
methods? A day, nay a year, would scarce suffice
to name the numerous applications of machinery
and steam power in ministering to the wants of
man.
In your youthtime manual labor was, as it had
been through all ages, the main force in production.
You have lived to see the substitution of horse
power and to see it supplanted by steam. How near
we are now living to the close of the steam age no
man can foretell, but certain it is you have lived to
see the dawn of the electrical era. Fifty years
ago electricity as a useful agent was entirely un-
known. Today its adoption promises to revolution-
ize all our industries. Already it lights our homes,
transmits our voices, aye and the image of our
countenances across a continent, while the whole
earth seems like a tliino- of life with a vast net work
182 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
of electric wires like a nervous system transmitting
the thoughts and feelings from every intelligence
to the remotest members, while the steam railway
like an arterial system conveys the life blood of com-
merce to every part. If Earth's cuticle be ruptured
kerosene oozes forth and from deeper gashes flow
the precious metals in abundance, while the sweat of
her summer yields the glad harvest. Her long un-
known tones of thunder are now translated, and
transmitted by telephone, and with myriads of steam
whistles she laughs at her children's triumphs in
catching, controlling and training the forces of
nature to do their bidding and to render glad ser-
vice to man.
The FIRST STEAM RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVE IN" AmERICA
made its trial trip but six years before you came to
Michigan. Today the railways of the world are of
sufficient length to encircle the earth at its equator
twelve times and the half of all this mileage is in our
beloved country. The telegraph, invented the very
year you came to Michigan, was not in practical use
until eight years later. The telephone and phono-
graph neither is yet ten years old. The one entombs
our very voices that our posterity may resurrect
them at pleasure unnumbered ages hence. The other
is in constant use in every city and village in the
land and has already revolutionized business
methods. Repeating firearms, gatling guns, dyna-
mite and nitro-glycerine, iron-clad ships, steel-
armored ships with revolving metalic turrets, re-
AN ADDRESS TO PIONEERS. 183
volving forts, ship canals, ship railways, marine
torpedoes and submarine navigation all belong to
the age of which you, hardy pioneers, have been
and done a part, a great, a noble part ; without you
these things would not, could not have been.
While the material progress of this time may well
be the marvel of the ages, the intellectual and
MORAL PROGRESS lias bccu also marked. Means for
increasing and disseminating knowledge have de-
veloped on every hand. The man lived until this
year who invented the first postage stamp, while
our postal system is now the wonder of the world,
The whole number of pieces mailed in the United
States for fifty years before you came to Michigan
was less than 100,000,000, while this year the pieces
mailed in Boston alone is more than twice that
number. Nine rates of postage were charged you
fifty years ago, varying from six cents for letters
carried less than thirty miles to twenty-five cents
for those carried 450 miles. The postoifice, for the
use of the people, is the product of the present gen-
eration.
, The newspaper, that wondrous lever of civiliza-
tion, (formerly published generally by the post-
masters of the several cities and all papers but
theirs excluded from the mails), was still an experi-
ment fifty years ago. No paper in America at that
time had a circulation of 5,000 copies. The first
religious newspaper in America was at that time
but twenty-one years old and the first agricultural
184 PIONEER HISTORY OP EATON COUNTY.
newspaper was barely eighteen. Today every ham-
let publishes a local paper and the great city dailies
are borne on the wrings of the morning almost
wherever man may tread. Over 2,000 million copies
are issued annually in this country or over forty
copies for each man, woman and child in America ;
and any man in town may, at his breakfast table,
read of every important event that took place in any
capital on earth but the day before. Surely the day
dawns when we should be brethren to all mankind.
Fifty years ago the Bible, Fox 's Book of Martyrs
and an almanac formed a library. Today our homes
are filled with books and a half dozen papers are
often regular and welcome visitors at the farmer's
fireside.
Fifty years ago the three r's formed the curricu-
lum in your schools. Today our country district
schools add to these not only geography and English
language but U. S. history, science of government,
natural philosophy, algebra, physiology and natural
history, and a child of fourteen years already has
a smattering of all of these.
Fifty years ago our colleges taught little but the
mythical language and legends of ancient Greece and
Rome. Today Nature's labratory is opened for our
inspection. Truths were concealed for ages in the
GREAT BOOKS OF THE ROCKS, rills and vales which are
now opened displaying their beautifully illustrated
pages and attractive type while teachers, ready to
translate their entrancing tales and teach their lore.
AN ADDEESS TO PIONEERS. 185
are ever ready inviting us to read. The spectro-
scope reveals to us the composition of the very stars.
Old Astronomy has received and sheds a flood of
new light. Geology, the youngest of the sisterhood
of sciences, adorned with jeweled robes, woos us
with silver tones to listen to the poem of old Earth's
early life. Chemistry reveals a flood of newly dis-
covered, useful, practical knowledge every year.
Light, heat and electricity, with their ever varying
iridescence, invite us to pursue, among the fleeting
shadows, the glittering flashes, they now and then
reveal, of the infinitude of light and truth beyond.
Acoustics has its time-tried theories torn asunder
but with a tide of truth just yet concealed beyond
the ken of mortal man.
Politico-economic science is sighing for a teacher
able to expound its truths. Evolution no longer
startles us with its assumptions, but its probabilities
are conceded by every great living naturalist on
either side the ocean. Even medicine promises yet
to become a science.
Ministers of the Gospel are learning to proclaim
the glorious teachings of our Savior instead of con-
tending for dogmatic platitudes which they never
understood, and Christianity is awakening to the
import of its divine Founder's last command.
Slavery is swept from our land, and the hydra-
headed monster. Intemperance, is grappling in the
throes of death with the better sentiment of the
last quarter of the grandest of centuries.
186 PIONEEE HISTOKY OF EATON COUNTY.
This is emphatically the age of progkess. Other
ages have exhibited giant movements and agitations,
but these have been principally conflicts and revolu-
tions. The movements of this have been marches^
its agitations advances. The progress made has
been so rapid and universal that the people stand
amazed at their own triumphs and question whether
they have not nearly reached the limit of possible
advancement. Still the battle cry of the world is
ONWARD. Can we doubt that this spirit is to con-
tinue through countless ages, that other centuries
shall stand as far in advance of this as this now is
beyond its predecessors? You have witnessed the
kindling of the intellectual fires which are des-
tined to burn on through futurity with a brighter,
steadier flame until the end of time. The portals
of the great intellectual realm have been thrown
wide open and, as we explore its vistas, broader and
deeper flow the streams of thought ; wider and more
fertile seem the fields of that realm; more glorious
seems the sky o'erhead and more boundless and
harmonious the paths before, until the ends thereof
or the glories of their unexplored labyrinths no man
can conceive.
A half a century of time,
Oh! what a theme, for prose or rhyme,
Is such a century.
When here you came in Autumn time,
And chose this land and climate fine,
You pitched your tent, at evening time.
For half a century.
AN ADDRESS TO PIONEERS. 187
When here you laid j'ou down to rest
Your head no downy pillow pressed;
What hopes, were forming in your hreast,
•Of half a century!
The night wind whispered "Rest in peace,
"The rising sun will bring no ease,
"But lead to labors not to cease
"For half a century."
The forest spoke of endless toil,
The bears and wolves would make turmoil,
Your only thought was from the soil,
With ceaseless toil.
To wrest a competence.
When here again you came alone.
To change the forest to a home,
You'd heard of Adam and his bone
And how alone
It was not good to live.
And when you met a maiden fair,
With hazel eye and auburn hair,
She looked to you as maidens rare,
Discreet and fair,
Will always look to men.
And when you'd won her prudent hand
And she had joined you on this land
She brought to you a precious band,
A merry band.
Of children such as we.
A helpmete true she has always been,
A precious mother now as when
She nursed us at her breast or when,
Oft and again,
iShe taught us at her knee.
The old log house we well recall
Its furniture, you made it all;
Hewed down the logs and chinked the wall;
It does recall
Long memories.
188 PIONEEK HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
Your brothers came to share your home,
Join In your cares and help to roam
The forest, vast and all unknown,
And bring you home
Fresh store of venison.
Long hardships now you may recall;
Driving an ox team in the fall,
Full fifty miles (you walked it all).
To reach the fall
Where ran the watermill.
Here you have felled the forest king;
Here you have watched, upon the wing.
The storm birds and the birds of spring
And everything
That makes us love this life.
Here you have toiled the long days through
Mid stumps and logs and briars too.
Treading at early morn the dew
When, all night through,
Fever with ague vied.
Sickness and accidents, a share
Has fallen to your lot, and care,
But ne'r complaint heard anywhere;
Stout heart was there
In all adversities.
Weddings have come, too, with their cheer;
And death has wrung from you a tear,
Your youngest son lies buried here
After so brief career
And yet how grand a life.
Grandchildren, too, have gone before;
You'll meet glad welcome on that shore
From whence no traveler, heretofore
Or evermore,
iShall come again to earth.
AN ADDKESS TO PIONEERS. 189
Others may live as long we know,
Perhaps more griefs and sorrows know,
But none again can undergo.
While here ibelow.
The hardships you have seen.
To change a forest into farms,
With strong right hand and brawny arms.
While wife and children dread alarms.
And savage harms.
And wildwood miseries.
Is done but once in any place;
And not another age or race
Can here again your works replace,
Or steps retrace,
For half a century.
Your labors here are nearly done.
Your race on earth is nearly run,
The Master soon will call you home
And say "Well done,
"Enter the joy prepared."
But memory will linger still
About your grave; and many will
Come after you, but none can fill
The place you filled
For half a century.
And may the good deeds you have done
Be ne'er forgotten by your son,
But like the waves caused by a stone
Their influence run
Through many centuries.
PIONEER SOCIETY
The Eaton County Pioneer Society doubtless owes
its origin to Henry A. Shaw, Esq., of Eaton Rapids,
more than to any other. A meeting was called at
his office on January 6th, 1872, for the purpose of
organizing a Pioneer Society.
Hon. John Montgomery was made chairman of
the meeting and G. W. Knight, secretary. H. A.
Shaw, Joel Latson and J. W. Toles were appointed
a committee to make arrangements for the first
meeting, to be held at Eaton Rapids February 22,
1872.
A constitution was then adopted providing,
among other things, ''This association shall be
known as the Pioneer Society of Eaton and Ingham
Counties. Any person having resided continuously
in the State since 1847, and being now a resident of
either of these two counties, is eligible to member-
ship." At this first annual meeting John Mont-
gomery was elected President; R. W. Griswold,
Vice President ; and G. W. Knight, Secretary.
The second annual meeting was held at Charlotte,
February 24, 1873, when S. S. Church of Vermont-
ville was elected President.
The third annual meeting was held at Eaton Rap-
ids, February 25, 1874. Hon. Austin Blair related
interesting early experiences, and he was followed
190
PIONEEE SOCIETY. 191
by others. At tliis meeting the constitution was
amended to provide for meetings in June instead
of February. Jesse Hart of Brookfield was elected
President.
Two meetings were held in 1874, the second at
Vermontville when Fitz L. Eeed of Olivet was
elected President.
The fourth annual meeting was held on the fair
grounds at Charlotte and subsequent meetings were
held at the same place until 1922, when a fiftieth
anniversary meeting was held at Eaton Rapids on
February 22d.
The Presidents of the Society from 1875 have been
as follows : I. E. C. Hickok, Osman Chappell, G. T.
Rand, Esek Pray, George N. Potter, George W.
Nichols and others. Elisha Shepherd was a most
efficient President for many years and Ernest Pray
for several.
George A. Perry was a most satisfactory Secre-
tary for many years. After him the secretaries'
books were lost so this report must be fragmentary.
At the annual meeting in Charlotte, 1921, Daniel
Strange, then President, was elected Historian, and
he at once set about the compilation of this history.
Frank A. Dean was then elected President, and
Frank N. Green, Vice President, and Cynthia A.
Green, Secretary.
At the annual meeting in 1922, Frank N. Green
presiding, it was voted to publish the Pioneer His-
tory of the County. It was also voted to hold the
192 PIONEER HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY.
annual meeting of 1923 at Bellevue to celebrate the
ninetieth anniversary of the first settlement in the
county at that place. The following officers were
elected: Frank N. Green, Olivet, President; Nelson
L. Smith, Charlotte, Vice President; Cynthia A.
Green, Charlotte, Secretary.
Ingham County had never joined with Eaton
County in these celebrations and at the Bellevue
meeting in 1923, it was voted to adopt the more
fit name of Eaton County Pioneer and Historical
Society. The officers last named were re-elected
together with A. B. Barnum for many years a most
efficient Treasurer.
THE END.
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